


Just One Night

by jacquelee



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mentions of canon character death, Quite a bit of angst actually, Some angst, Time Travel Shenanigans, allusions to domestic abuse/violence, alternating povs, but there will be a happy ending I promise, major character death only applies to chapter 9 and is only temporary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-19 10:16:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13702434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquelee/pseuds/jacquelee
Summary: "Hi, I'm from the future and I love your sister. I need a place to stay, could I spend the night here?"Ava gets displaced in time and needs a place to stay in 2009 Starling City. The one person she can think of going to is Laurel Lance.





	1. A Place to go

**Author's Note:**

> Written for two random character prompts for Laurel and Ava: "What would make Ava lie to Laurel" and "Ava needs to stay at Laurel's house for the night", both of which I found very intriguing, so here you are.

Landing heavily on something resembling pavement, Ava relied on her training to stop the panic rising in her and to ascertain her situation logically and methodically. She couldn't determine any immediate threats and the fight she had just left, while having been long and hard, had apparently only left her with a sprained wrist, a few bruises and an exhaustion that was overcome by adrenaline at the moment, nothing more serious. So far so good.

Looking around, she saw that she had landed in what seemed to be an alley, in the darkness. She immediately tried to activate her time courier just to find out with another jolt of panic that it was not there. With a sudden pain in her temple, everything that had happened came back to her. Mallus' plan. The Darhks circling in on her and the legends. On Sara. Her time courier being ripped off of her wrist. 

Then a flash and then she had landed here. Wherever here was. For now she only knew that she was definitely somewhere very different from where she had been a moment before. 

Damn it. Ava didn't curse often, not even in her own head, but this situation truly seemed to call for it. She scanned the immediate area for the presence of any of the other legends but none of them seemed to be here. 

Where were they? Were they still with the Darhks? Where was Sara? Worry crept over her, making it hard to breath, to think. This team of rule breakers and especially its captain had become her family so unexpectedly in such a short time, sometimes it was still hard to believe for Ava that it had happened. 

But it had, and now the only thing she could think about was to get back to them. To Sara. And for that she needed to focus. To set aside her worry and think. First rule of landing in an unfamiliar environment, find out where and when you are. 

To that end, Ava walked on still unsteady legs out of the alley and into a city she wasn't sure she knew. It seemed like Star City (or was it Starling City at this point in time?) but she couldn't be sure. She started towards what she hoped to be a more populated area, which seemed to be far too far away for her liking, especially seeing how exhausted she was after the fight and after having barely slept for weeks, ever since Mallus had truly begun his crusade against the bureau and the legends. 

At least it was relatively warm, warm enough for her to not be cold in her pantsuit. Probably spring or early summer. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of just walking, she saw an open store and decided to find a local newspaper to ascertain both the place and the time in which she had landed. 

Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible she straightened her pantsuit, which thankfully had been only minimally impaired by her rough landing in the alley and was still presentable enough. A quick check also proved that her wallet was still save in her blazer pocket. She always had some emergency cash with her, but it wouldn't last for long. 

Unfortunately, the mission they had been on was supposed to be an easy one, so she had not taken any means of communication with her other than her time courier. Cursing herself silently for that, she took a deep breath and tried to collect her thoughts again.

She was pretty sure that she hadn't been sent that far into the past, or the future for that matter, since everything seemed at least vaguely familiar, familiar enough for this being sometime around the 2000's. So she possibly would even be able to find help in this time, from the bureau or, dare she say it, the legends living in this time period. Entering the store, she made a beeline to the newspaper stand while trying to appear casual enough as to not draw attention. 

The first few newspapers she saw confirmed her earlier suspicions. She was indeed in Starling City. And the year was 2009. Fantastic. She sighed. Of course she would land in exactly the year in which she had nowhere to go in this city, nobody she knew. The Time Bureau had not yet been opened here, none of the legends knew anything about time travel or just vigilantism for that matter, and she herself hadn't moved to Starling until two years from now. 

So what now? Think. There was no way she could reach herself or Rip in this time period, not with the limited means she had at her disposal at the moment. But she needed backup, a place to stay if she was to succeed in somehow sending a message through time. 

If she couldn't find someone who could help her build some sort of temporal beacon she would have to resort to something she didn't particularly like but which might become necessary in this situation, somehow changing the timeline in a significant enough manner for the Time Bureau or the legends to notice and pick her up. 

If either was even able to do so at the moment. The Time Bureau was still reeling from having lost Rip and having no idea how to even start to fight the Darhks and Mallus, and when she had last seen the legends… no, she really didn't want to think about that. They were fine. They had to be. 

Realizing that she had been standing here for far too long, she left the newspaper stand and slowly went to the cash register, all the while racking her brain, trying to come up with some solution for her predicament. It didn't particularly help that her thoughts went back to Sara all the time. 

Not knowing if Sara was okay, not knowing what had happened to her was enough to make her panic again, make her wish she could just do something, anything, to get back to her. But there was nothing she could do. She was stuck in a time where she hadn't even met Sara yet. Worse than that, in a time where Sara was presumed dead, lost at sea with the Queen's Gambit, while in reality being trained in Nanda Parbat by the league of assassins. 

While it initially made her just more desperate, that thought also suddenly sparked something in her. There was someone she knew in this time period, in this city. Or not so much knew, rather knew of. Sara's family. She shook her head at herself, knowing that even considering this was breaking more than a dozen different Time Bureau rules. 

But then again, she had broken so many rules in the last few weeks, what were a few more? She needed to find a way to get back to her time, to make sure that everyone was safe. And for that, she needed a place to think, to rest. 

Her head was still hurting and spinning, her body that was used to a lot of hardship was about to give out on her partly from exhaustion and partly due to her emotional state. Her wrist was throbbing more and more and her money would not be enough for a hotel, even of the cheap variety and to go to a shelter or similar would have meant lying in a way that she felt quite uncomfortable with. 

No, whatever the rules said, if there was someone in this city she might be able to convince to let her stay the night without having to reveal her true self or lie in a way she would really rather avoid, she would damn well take that chance. Clearly, her time with the legends had made her a pretty sufficient rule breaker too, because she didn't even feel more than a small pang of guilt at the thought of committing such a massive breach of protocol. 

Even worse, now that she had basically decided, which apparently had happened sometime in the last ten seconds, she was actually curious about meeting Sara's family. Sara's sister. She had never had that chance before and seeing that Laurel was dead in her time, it was more than unlikely she would get that chance again.

Taking some gum from the stands near the cash register, she paid and with new determination in her step went to the store exit, trying to think of the details she knew about Laurel and Quentin Lance. Where did they live at this point in time? 

She vaguely remembered reports on Sara's family and came to the conclusion that Laurel thankfully had not moved anywhere for years, either before or after Sara's presumed death, and therefore would live in the apartment that she still lived in together with Sara later, after her return. An apartment that Ava knew well from her research on Sara.

Now just to remember the address. Ava had generally a very good memory, and her ever present desire to remember every single detail of every single case, especially such an important one as Sara Lance, was quite helpful in situations like this one, as was her habit of sorting things by keywords in her head to better remember. 

She recited the things she knew about Sara's past at this point in time in her head, eventually getting to her sister's apartment and there it was, the address. Pushing aside the last of her doubts, she called a taxi and tried to come up with a reliable cover story during the ride. It had to be something Laurel would believe, something that would not make her throw her out immediately or call her father and have her arrested. 

Unfortunately, her exhausted brain was finally catching up with her wrecked body that now that the adrenaline had dissipated somewhat was craving nothing more than rest, both her temple and her wrist hurting more and more. 

Which meant that it was getting harder and harder to think, and that her brain seemed to be adamant to play tricks on her, instead of coming up with a valid plan always going back to "Hi, I'm from the future and I love your sister, I need a place to stay, could I spend the night here?" which was quite obviously the worst thing she could say in this situation. 

Far too soon, the taxi stopped and she had to get out. Paying the driver, she looked at the apartment building, slightly panicking again. She really needed a plan. Right now. Think. Sara had been in college before she had gone missing, so it would stand to reason that she would have known people there. Right. 

She knew enough about Sara to be reasonably sure that she could pretend to be a friend from college, not a student, obviously, but possibly an assistant teacher or something. Yes, that might work. 

When someone entered the apartment building she was still standing in front of, she seized her opportunity and went inside with them. Going up to the right apartment, she only had to pluck up the courage to knock. After taking a deep breath, she did exactly that. 

For a few moments nothing happened and Ava was already fearing that Laurel wasn't at home at all when she heard steps on the other side of the door. After another moment the door was opened, albeit only marginally. 

"Yes?" 

Laurel was frowning at her, clearly not happy to get a strange visitor this late. But she was also not immediately throwing the door into Ava's face, so she took that as a tentative good sign. 

Except that seeing Sara's sister, a person she knew had been so important to her, alive and well, for the first time, unexpectedly caused a rush of emotion in Ava that caused her to choke for a second. When she trusted her voice again, she started speaking, in what she hoped to be a more or less steady tone that still seemed quite shaky. 

"Hi, I'm Ava, Ava Sharpe," seeing that Laurel and her had never met she had decided that a fake name would only complicate things, "I'm a friend of your sister's. I mean, I was. I went with her to college. I was an assistant teacher." 

She said all of it at as high a speed as she could, her voice raspy and exhausted. Laurel still just frowned at her.

"Sara's friend? How do you know this address?" 

"Sara told me." 

This seemed to not go over well, since the frown only deepened. 

"Really?" For a second Ava thought that now she would get the door in her face but Laurel just let out a sound somewhere between an exasperated laughter and a snort. "Of course she did. She's Sara. Was." 

That seemed to bring up unwanted emotions, but also gave Ava the in she needed. 

"That's why I'm here. I wanted to offer condolences." 

"After two years? A bit late don't you think?" 

The sarcasm and scoff was more than Ava could handle right now. Tears of frustration and desperation were threatening to spill out at any moment and she couldn't quite hide the pain she still felt in her wrist and in her head when she went with her usual nervous gesture of pushing the hair that had escaped her bun out of her face. 

For some reason that seemed to catch Laurel's attention, as her face softened somewhat to give way to a more curious and worried expression than a judging one. But Ava couldn't handle this anymore. She needed to leave. This had been a bad idea.

"I'm sorry. I… I shouldn't have come. I just… I just needed a place to go to, but… this was a bad idea. I'm sorry." 

Ava stammered very uncharacteristically, basically just trying to get out at this point. She was far too used to always push her emotions down, and now she was being overwhelmed by far too many of them caused by being stuck here without knowing if Sara was alright or how she herself would be able to get back, talking to Sara's sister, who was dead in her time about Sara's presumed death in this time. 

She had no idea where to go or what to do now and she tried to tell her body to move but it didn't cooperate much, and Laurel still just looked at her in a weird inquisitive manner that she couldn't quite place. After a few moments she breathed in deeply, hoping to regain some composure, gave a curt nod, pretty sure that a tear was making its way down her cheek, and made to leave as quickly as she could in her state. 

"Wait. What happened to your face and your hand? What is going on here?" Not wanting to draw this out any further, Ava didn't answer but just turned around and walked away, but she had barely made it a few steps when she felt a grip on her arm. Instinct took over and she immediately went into a defensive stance, just to be confronted by Laurel's shocked look. "It's okay. I just want to help. You can come in, catch your breath, tell me what's going on. Okay?" 

For a moment, Ava wasn't sure what she could say or what she should do, everything being far too much, but then she nodded again. It wasn't like this hadn't been her idea to begin with. She just hadn't anticipated that seeing Laurel would stir up this many emotions inside of her. 

Laurel smiled a little, half encouraging, half still confused, and led their way back to the apartment, without trying to touch Ava again. When she entered with Laurel, Ava was a little amazed that this plan had actually worked so far, at least kind of, but then remembered what Sara had said about her sister the one time they had talked about her more in depth. 

Laurel Lance, always trying to save the world.


	2. Unexpected, but Nice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laurel has no idea what to make of the stranger that suddenly appeared on her doorstep. But she is willing to help her, not expecting what she gets in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allusions to domestic abuse/violence (that did not happen, but the allusion is still there). Sara will be talked about, so mention of assumed character death.

Laurel led the woman, Ava, into her apartment, still a little suspicious and a lot confused about what was going on. There didn't seem to be a threat, at least not an immediate one and Laurel knew she could defend herself when necessary, but she'd rather not find out tonight how good those self defense lessons had actually been. 

"You can sit down, get some rest." Nodding to the sofa, she closed and locked the door and when she turned around, Ava was already sitting down, carefully, breathing heavily and closing her eyes for a moment. With her head back, Laurel got a better look at her face, which seemed to be slightly swollen and bruised, not even very visible but to someone with her experience in cases like this definitely noticeable. "Let me get some ice for that." 

She gestured at Ava, not specifying what exactly she meant, since she was quite sure that the bruise on her head was not the only injury the other woman had sustained, especially since she had held her wrist awkwardly before. 

For a moment she thought Ava would decline and deny that she was injured at all, but then she just smiled ever so slightly, a tight lipped cautious smile. 

"Thank you." 

When she went to the freezer, Laurel went through all her recent cases that involved domestic violence in her head, as well as cases her colleagues worked on. Whoever had sent Ava here, or however she had found her address, it was clearly not because she had at some point been friends with Sara and had two years after her disappearance decided to pay her respects. 

But that was too much of a reach to be completely made up, especially since anyone who actually had known Sara also knew about what had happened before she went missing. Why she had gone missing. And the fact that Laurel had reasons to not be particularly welcoming to anyone with connections to Sara.

Taking an icepack out of the freezer and putting it in a clean towel, Laurel went back to Ava, who was still sitting with her eyes closed, seemingly trying hard to calm down. When she opened her eyes, Laurel smiled a little bit and gave her the icepack, letting her decide what exactly to do with it. 

With a smile that was a little more open than the last one and another thank you, Ava took it and put it on her wrist first. 

"Would you like some tea, too? I was just making some for me." 

Ava nodded. 

"Thank you, tea would be great." 

Laurel busied herself in the kitchen, all the while still keeping an eye on her guest who now alternated the icepack between her wrist and the side of her face, in a way that clearly showed a heart breaking routine in such things. 

With her tight but now disheveled bun, the pantsuit and her stance in the corridor that had seemed professional to a fault until it fell apart, she was sure that Ava was someone who was used to appear invincible and wanted to be seen as someone who had full control over their emotions. 

Which were also traits that made someone the prime candidate for abusers, something Laurel had learned a long time ago, not just from her work as a lawyer but also from the stories her father had always told them about his work. He had always been honest with his daughters, trying to prepare them for what was out there. 

When Laurel came back with two cups of tea, handing one to Ava, earning another smile and quiet thank you, she tried to decide on an approach to get to the bottom of what was actually going on here. She had some ideas but she couldn't really say if her suspicions were correct without talking to Ava. And from her experience, that talk would have to be approached delicately. 

But then again, being delicate had never really been her style, and maybe if she started out from a different direction, she would get some results. Also, she really wanted to know what had made Ava come up with that story about Sara. She sat down in a chair opposite the sofa and looked at Ava with a smile she hoped was encouraging.

"So, did you actually know Sara or was that just an excuse to get me to help you. Which, for the record, would not have been necessary. You could have just told me you needed help. I help people. It's my job." 

Ava looked at her for a moment and then seemed to come to a decision. 

"I know. Laurel Lance, always trying to save the world." Laurel frowned. What was that supposed to mean? Seeing the frown, Ava seemed to backpedal and made Laurel feel bad for it in two seconds flat. "I mean, that's what Sara said. She always talked about how much you help people, how you have this big heart. It's why I came here today." 

That was a hard thing for Laurel to hear. She looked away, not being able to hold back the tears forming in her eyes.

"Wow. And here I thought she hated me." 

"What? No, she loved you. Very much." 

Laurel looked at Ava again, at this stranger who had a conviction in her eyes that made her almost believe that what she was saying was true. She still couldn't hold back a scoff. 

"She had a bad way of showing that." 

With the way Ava looked at her, Laurel was sure that she knew. Of course, everybody knew. Her life was prime fodder for the gossip magazines. But she really didn't want to talk about that right now. Especially not since her tactic had worked in a way and Ava seemed to be ready to open up a bit. 

So she just sighed and thought about what she could say to steer the conversation away from Sara and her own life and onto what happened to Ava. 

But before she could think of something, Ava started talking again, in a low voice, as if she needed to get something off her chest, looking down at her injured wrist. 

"When I met Sara I thought she was the most reckless, irresponsible, dangerous, unreliable person I ever met. She had this habit of just going into places and messing everything up. No regards for any rules or regulations. And the worst was that everyone still loved her. 

"My… boss, I tried to impress him for years, doing everything I could, following every rule, but I could never hold up to Sara. She was always the one and only. I always told myself I hated her for it. I don't know, I don't think I did, I was just jealous and insecure. I didn't even know her, not really.

"And then, something happened. Things at work went wrong, terribly wrong and I suddenly had nobody to rely on anymore. Everything was falling apart. And Sara… Sara asked for my help. I didn't even think about it for a second, I just went over to her. And just like that, I saw her differently. I saw how hurt and insecure she herself was, how much her strong and careless act was just that, an act. 

"How much she cared, for her friends, for others, even though she wasn't always able to show it. After that, I couldn't even pretend to hate her anymore. And now I just started to really know her, to really understand her, and…" 

Ava's voice trailed off, leaving a silence behind that was heavy with emotions. Laurel had tears in her eyes and was pretty sure they were falling down her face too. She hadn't thought about Sara like this for years, if ever. How did this stranger understand Sara so well? How did she know her sister better than herself? And… hold up, what did she mean with 'just'? Sara had been missing for two years.

"What do you mean, just? Sara died two years ago." 

She hadn't meant to be so confrontational, she was just confused and some small part of her grabbed onto that word and created all those scenarios in her head in which Sara could possibly still be alive. After all, her body had never been found. 

But Ava just looked at her sadly, also with tears on her face and in her eyes. 

"I'm sorry. I just meant it feels like it was just. I know that Sara is gone." 

She seemed to choke on that a little bit, as if it was a pain that was still fresh, no matter how long it had been there. Laurel smiled a little bit, even though she was pretty sure it looked strained. It was not Ava's fault that her hopes had just been crushed. Again. 

"It's okay. I mean, it's not, but I am learning to live with it. Every day." 

Ava looked up at her with tears now falling down her cheeks. 

"I don't know how to do that." 

Following an impulse, Laurel got up and went over to Ava, crouching down in front of her, looking at her questioningly and then, when all she saw in her eyes was pain and sadness but no fear or rejection, she took her hands into her own, being careful with the injured wrist. 

"Honestly, I don't really know either. I never did. I just go on, as well as I can, but it never feels like it's enough. It never feels like I am truly alive." 

"As if part of you stayed on that boat and is still drowning." 

Laurel looked into Ava's eyes, shocked that she understood so well. She didn't trust her voice enough to speak, so she just nodded. 

Ava nodded too, sadly, her eyes still wet with tears, her hands holding onto Laurel's as if they were a lifeline, except that she flinched a little when she accidentally moved her wrist. That took Laurel out of her reverie, and made her realize that the wrist was indeed swollen, definitely sprained, though hopefully not broken. 

She felt anger bubbling up inside of her, anger at the person who had done this to the perfect stranger she felt this weird connection to. Who had been so close to her sister, possibly closer than she had ever been. In a way, it was easier to feel angry at someone she didn't know than to feel all the other emotions that this conversation had brought up in her. 

Not knowing if this was a good idea or a terrible idea, but needing to know what had happened, needing to know who had hurt her sister's friend, Laurel pointedly looked into Ava's eyes and carefully, gently, pushed a strand of hair out of her face, the entire time ready to retreat at the slightest flinch. It never came.

"What happened? Who did this to you?" At this, Ava did retreat, but only slightly, clearly not wanting to give up on the contact they still had. Laurel shifted too, looking into Ava's eyes again and trying to convey all the determination she felt. "I can help you. I'm a lawyer. My father is a police detective. I can make sure that you are safe. That whoever did this will never hurt you or anyone else ever again." 

She immediately knew that it had been the wrong thing to say and cursed herself for being too forward, too fast. Ava shut down completely, taking her hands out of Laurel's hold and physically retreating to the end of the sofa. Her eyes closed, tears falling down her cheeks, she seemed to try to hold in some very strong emotions that she was not ready to open up about. Not yet anyways. 

Laurel didn't push any further, knowing she had already gone too far and just stayed where she was, not wanting to spook Ava even more. After a few moments, Ava seemed to have regained her composure somewhat. She opened her eyes again, looking at Laurel sadly, with the smallest smile. 

"I wish you could help me. I wish I could just tell you everything. But I can't. I'm sorry. It's just not possible." With that, Ava seemed to have come to a conclusion. She stood up, Laurel matching her movement, slowly as to not scare her. "I should go. Thank you for the tea and the talk. I… I need to go."

Breathing heavily, Ava seemed to be unsure of what to do now, taking a small step towards the door but hesitating when Laurel held up both of her hands in an attempt to calm her down, to signal that she was safe. 

"I am sorry. If you don't want to talk about it, you don't need to talk about it. But, do you have somewhere to go? A place to stay?" Expectedly, Ava shook her head twice, closing her eyes again, clearly trying to hold more tears at bay. "I have a spare bedroom. You can stay for the night, rest, clear your head. We'll figure things out in the morning. Does that sound good?" 

Still hesitating but clearly without better options at the moment, Ava nodded eventually. 

"Thank you." 

"Good. Now, let's see, do you want to take a shower?" 

Ava looked at her, a little surprised at the quick change of subject but then nodded. 

"A shower would be great, yes." 

"Okay, I'll show you the bathroom and put out some fresh towels for you. And some clothes for the night, I'm assuming you don't have anything to change into right now, do you?" Ava shook her head, and Laurel continued, trying to keep the tone light, not dwelling on what had made the other woman go to a stranger's house with just the clothes on her back, "that's fine, we are about the same size, I'm sure I'll find something that'll fit you. And then I'll make us some soup, I'm assuming you could use something to eat." 

Ava just stared at her for a moment after that speech, and seemed to fight with more tears. 

"Thank you so much. I feel like saying thank you is all I'm doing right now, but I really mean it. Thank you." 

Smiling encouragingly again, Laurel led Ava to the bathroom and took some towels out of the drawer. 

"No need to thank me. I like the company." 

When she went back to the kitchen, having left Ava to her own devices in the bathroom, Laurel realized that she meant that. She had met Ava only such a short time ago, it was weird to already consider her someone whose company she enjoyed, but her insights on Sara had been eye-opening, albeit sad, and she felt like she would truly like talking to her some more. 

Warming up the soup she realized that for the first time, she was thinking about Sara without feeling the pang of betrayal and anger as much as she had before. Maybe Ava had come here for her help, but clearly, she was helping Laurel just as much.


	3. Find a Way Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ava feels a little safer and is happy to get to know Laurel better, but still has to consider a way to get back to her time, and one way festers in her brain, as much as she tries to avoid it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of angst in the last part of this chapter (which is quite short, so the angst is not too long).

Stepping out of the shower, her hair hanging wet over her shoulders, Ava felt a little more hopeful than before. She still had no idea how to get back to her time but she at least felt safe here, with Laurel. Sara's sister had been surprising to her, something she thought about while drying her hair. 

Of course, she had known that Laurel had been holding a grudge against her sister for a long time after Sara went missing with the Queen's Gambit, but what she had not expected was herself feeling the need to open up to this woman, who for all intents and purposes was a stranger, even though she did feel like she knew her a little from Sara talking about her. 

But that talk they had about Sara, about things she had never told anyone else, had been at the same time unexpected and freeing. For Ava, it had brought with it a new determination to do whatever it took to get back home, to get back to Sara. To make sure that she was alright. 

Dressing in the light blue pajamas Laurel had put out for her, positively surprised that they fit her perfectly, Ava tried to come up with some ideas, any ideas as to how to get back to where she belonged. Unfortunately, while the shower had reinvigorated her physically, her thoughts were still a swirling mess and she couldn't concentrate on anything. 

She decided to shelve this question for now and to go eat some soup. Taking her carefully folded clothes in one hand and her shoes in the other, having decided to go barefoot, she left the bathroom in the direction of the kitchen. Laurel greeted her with a smile and when she held up the pile of clothes in a questioning manner, pointed her to another door. 

The guest bedroom was small, but nice. There was a bed with colorful sheets, a wardrobe and a drawer next to the bed, some shelves with books on them and a chair. 

Ava didn't linger, mostly because she felt like if she looked at the bed for a few moments longer she would just fall into it and immediately be asleep. And as much as that sounded very tempting, she did feel hungry now and knew it would be better to eat something first. 

She also didn't want to miss the opportunity to talk to Laurel some more. As much as she was afraid to say too much, to screw up the timeline, talking to her was something that seemed to come really easily and made her feel like they could truly understand each other. 

Of course, that brought with it a whole other mess, seeing as she did have to go back to her time, and in her time, Laurel had been dead for quite a while. But here she was alive. So why not take this chance? Not just to feel closer to Sara but to actually get to know Laurel as a person, however much it would hurt to have to say goodbye eventually. 

Coming back into the kitchen, she saw that Laurel had already laid out dishes for two and was about to put the soup on the table. She smiled at Ava again. 

"I see the pajama fits you. It looks nice." 

"Thanks. And thank you for lending it to me and for the shower. I feel much better now." 

"That's good. Come on, let's eat." 

Sitting down at the table, there was a bit of an awkward silence at first, but then Laurel remarked on something Sara had always done while eating and Ava smiled, agreeing with her. They fell into a comfortable conversation, at first about Sara and her mannerisms, laughing freely and happily after the first few remarks, and then about Laurel's job, her family, her ambitions to become District Attorney some day. 

They didn't talk about Ava much, and when they did then it was small things, unimportant things like which food she liked and how she had always preferred cats over dogs. Everything else, everything that could give away who she truly was, Ava tried to carefully avoid. 

Like the question about her job. She just said she had been an assistant teacher for psychology at the college Sara went to, knowing that Sara had indeed taken psychology for a semester. But when asked further, Ava changed the subject and Laurel took the hint and didn't bring it up again. 

Laurel also didn't ask about the origin of her injuries again, which Ava was grateful for, because she really didn't want to lie. 

Other than not being able to tell her basically anything about herself, Ava truly enjoyed talking to Laurel, but once the soup was eaten, she basically felt her eyes close more and more by the second.

"You want to get some sleep?" 

Ava looked up, confused. Apparently she had fallen asleep for a second, since Laurel looked at her with an amused expression. She smiled. 

"I could use some sleep, yes. Thank you again for everything." 

Laurel smiled back at her warmly. 

"Again, no problem. I actually had a good time." 

"Me too." 

They looked at each other for a moment, knowing that they still didn't know nearly enough about each other but both feeling comfortable in each others presence. 

"Well, I see you in the morning then. Good night." 

"Good night." Turning around, Ava went to the guest room, when she thought about something. "Wait, I can help you with the dishes."

"Nope, not a chance. Go. Sleep. You're the guest here." 

Ava laughed. 

"Okay. Thanks. Again." 

When she was alone in the guest room, she collapsed on the bed, and reminding herself that she still needed some semblance of a plan to get back home was all she could do to not fall asleep right then and there. 

But she did need a plan, so she forced herself to get up again and sat on the edge of the bed, closing her eyes, trying to come up with some ideas. Except her thoughts were still chaotic, unfocused. She needed something to focus them, to sort them out. 

Deciding to rely on a method that had always helped her sort out her thoughts, she looked in the drawer next to the bed for a piece of paper and something to write with and found a small notebook and a pen. She took them and carefully ripped one of the pages out of the notebook, hoping that Laurel wouldn't mind. 

Then she leaned back on the bed, piling the pillows up so that she was nearly in a sitting position, not wanting to fall asleep yet. Using the notebook to have a stable surface to write, she sat with her knees up, propping the notebook up on her legs. 

Then she wrote down the first thought she had, to get it out of her head and hopefully be able to think about everything one by one and not as she did right now, in one swirling mess of thoughts. 

The most obvious thing was to try and alter an event of significance in this time period, so she wrote: _Change a big event._ , but since she had no idea what kind of events even happened at this point in time, she added quickly: _Which event? Too many variables_. 

After that, she realized that the thing that kept her from thinking clearly, the thing that needed to be said, that she dreaded most of all, had to be written down. She had to get rid of it so that she could even consider other possibilities. So she wrote it down, feeling sick to her stomach.

_Kill someone of importance._

And once she had written it, it was as if a floodgate had opened in her head and the awful possibilities that she didn't even slightly want to consider but that just wormed their way into her head came out and made their way onto the paper.

_Kill myself._   
_Kill Laurel._

Just looking at what she had written, she couldn't stand it, crossing all of it out with two angry lines. But the thought still lingered. Someone dying before their time, someone important to the legends, to Sara, was indeed the easiest way to get their attention. But it was also making her stomach turn and tears fall onto her face again. 

Most of all, she knew she could never do it. Even if there was a guarantee that Sara would come back in time and stop her, there were still far too many variables, far too much that could go wrong. And just thinking about having to take a life, even if it was her own, even if it was just temporary and wouldn't happen at all in the end, was making her feel physically ill.

She couldn't hang on any longer couldn't look at the list so she just threw it to the side together with the notebook and curled up on the bed, crying. Crying for herself, being so lost, crying for even considering doing such a thing. Crying until she had no tears anymore, until sheer exhaustion overwhelmed her. 

Her last thought before she passed out was that she needed to destroy that list. But she was already too far gone to act on that thought.


	4. Betrayal?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laurel is looking forward to spending some more time with the stranger she already feels like she could call a friend when she makes a discovery that changes everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here there be angst, but don't worry, it won't last too long.

When Laurel woke up in the morning, she needed a few moments to remember everything that had happened last night, but it came back to her quickly. The stranger she had let into her house, just because she needed help and who then had turned out to be someone it was so easy to talk to, about Sara, about everything, that it seemed confusing that they truly only knew each other for one night. 

But of course, there were still things she didn't know anything about. Ava had played everything personal very close to the vest, especially how she had gotten injured and how she had ended up at a stranger's house, even a stranger whose sister she knew, late at night. 

She had heard Ava cry before she went to sleep herself and it had broken her heart, but she didn't want to interfere, didn't want to seem like an intruder. If Ava wanted to talk to her about the things that were clearly going on with her, she would. Until then, Laurel would just be here, waiting, hoping that she could prove to be a person to rely on, a friend. 

Clearly, Ava needed a friend. 

With that thought, Laurel got up and went to the bathroom, taking a shower and dressing in sweatpants and a simple t-shirt. It was Saturday, so she didn't have to go to work, but even if it hadn't been, she would have called in to say she was working on a case at home. Which wouldn't even have been much of a lie. 

And even if she would have had to lie, she wasn't going to abandon Ava, not when she so obviously needed her. Going to the kitchen, she stopped for a second at the door to the guest bedroom, but hearing no sounds from it she went on. 

Knowing that Ava needed the rest, she decided to let her sleep in and prepared breakfast. But after more than an hour she couldn't wait any longer and ate something herself. And then, after another hour, still no sounds coming from the room, she got slightly worried. It was already ten in the morning, and while it had been late last night, it hadn't been that late. 

What if Ava wasn't even there anymore? What if she had sneaked out while Laurel was sleeping? It would be disappointing, for sure, but there wouldn't be much she could do about that. Either way, she needed to know, so after another fifteen minutes, she went to the guest bedroom and knocked gently. 

Nothing. Another knock, louder this time. 

"Ava? Are you there?" 

Nothing again. Now Laurel was really worried and despite not wanting to intrude on her guest, if she was even still there, she carefully opened the door. Just to check. What she saw when the door was open enough to see the bed at once was a relief and another blow to her heart. 

Ava was lying on the bed in fetal position, looking like she had cried herself to sleep and hadn't moved for the entire night. From what Laurel could see of her face, her eyes were swollen and her cheeks red. She looked like someone who had passed out from exhaustion, which was more than likely what had actually happened. 

Laurel smiled a little and walked over to the bed, more an instinct than anything else, to check if Ava was really just asleep, if everything else was okay. When she had nearly made it to the bed, she noticed that she had stepped on something and realized that her notebook was lying on the floor. 

Without thinking, she bend down to pick it up and that was when she saw that a single paper had fallen out of it and was now lying next to it. She picked up both the notebook and the paper without really looking at either, but something on the paper caught her attention. 

Someone had crossed out the things written on it and before Laurel could discard the paper not wanting to pry, a word right by the bottom middle of the cross caught her eye and when she read on, not capable of stopping herself, she took a step back, all blood draining from her face. She clasped a hand to her mouth to not let out a scream. 

_Kill Laurel._

Suddenly feeling immensely cold and not concerned with prying anymore – whatever this meant, this paper had just become evidence, and therefore she was fully within her rights to read it – she read the rest, not able to do anything but stare at the paper. 

But even after she had read all of it three times, she still couldn't comprehend it. She had no idea what was going on here, but she knew she needed to do something. Telling her body to move, she took one last look at the still sleeping woman in her bed, and quietly went out the door.

In the corridor, she had to lean against the wall for a moment. Her heart was beating incredibly fast. What the hell was going on? She knew she should call her father, right now, but something made her hesitate. 

Maybe it was that first sentence, that didn't make any sense or maybe it was the way everything was crossed out, as if it had made Ava angry just to look at it. Or maybe the way she had come here, injured, desperate, combined with the way she had cried last night. Laurel accepted that that might have been all acting, but if it was, Ava deserved an Oscar for that, because she had definitely fooled her. 

Whatever this was, it didn't seem like a standard, murder suicide thing, not in the way the sentences had been written, in that order, as if it was easier for Ava to consider killing herself than Laurel. Which didn't particularly comfort Laurel, but it told her that there was something more going on here. 

And how did Sara fit into all of this? Because Ava definitely had known Sara, and quite well at that, there was no doubt in Laurel's mind about that. But what did that mean? Had Sara made friends with serial killers, or assassins or something? 

Coming to the conclusion that she would get to the bottom of this without involving anyone else for now, Laurel went to her closet and took out her shotgun. Whatever Ava was planning, she would show her that she could and would defend herself. 

With that thought, she went back into the guest bedroom, where Ava was still sleeping and pulled the chair up to the bed, sitting down with the shotgun in hand, pointed at the sleeping form, who was lying with her back to her right now. She knew the gun was functional and loaded, she checked it frequently. It was not a good feeling, pointing it at a living person, even someone who apparently, possibly, had plans of killing her. 

She had never before shot anyone, but she didn't doubt that she could. If her life was in danger, if it was the only way to defend herself, she could. 

A movement in the bed took her out of her dark thoughts. Getting very close to the bed and adjusting the shotgun so that it was directly pointed at Ava, Laurel felt adrenaline coursing through her body, her knees suddenly feeling as if they were made of jelly, making her glad she was sitting down. 

When Ava turned around, clearly not fully awake yet, Laurel put the shotgun right in front of her face, more as a show of force than anything else. And then everything happened so fast that she couldn't even blink. 

One moment, Ava seemed to still be half asleep, the next she had opened her eyes to see what was in front of her face and immediately did some maneuver that ended up with her taking the weapon from Laurel before the latter could even think about pulling the trigger, Ava now clearly fully awake and pointing the shotgun at Laurel's chest, half sitting, half crouching on the bed. 

The whole thing would have impressed Laurel if she hadn't been so scared. Not daring to move a muscle, she just sat there, waiting for the shot to go off, waiting to die. Funny, the whole 'your life flashes before your eyes' thing was a total lie, all she could think of was how gullible she had been. Gullible and naïve. Helping the wrong person. 

Then, what felt like an eternity later but was in reality probably only a few seconds, the weapon was lowered to the ground. Laurel didn't know what she had expected, but the hurt and sadness on the other woman's face was not it. 

"Laurel? What is going on?" 

Amazed that Ava could still seem so genuine, so sincere, even after that display right now, Laurel scoffed. 

"If you're going to kill me, just kill me. If not, you tell me what the hell is going on." 

She held out the list and understanding dawned on Ava's face. 

"That is not what it looks like." 

"No? Because it looks like I have let a murderer into my house. It looks like you lied to me, you used me, my connection to Sara, my compassion. You used all of that to gain my trust, for what? To kill me? You could have just done that last night, right after I let you in. You didn't have to talk to me, get me to like you." 

There was a lot of hurt in her voice, Laurel knew that. She could hardly hold back tears, knowing that she should be strong, that she should defy Ava and stop her from doing whatever she was planning on doing, but the only thing she could think of was that this was a person who had made her feel more connected to her sister than she had in years, a person she had genuinely started to like and that person had betrayed her. 

At least Ava had the decency to look guilty now, together with the still lingering sadness. 

"I talked to you because I wanted to. And I'm not a murderer. That list, it means nothing. That's why I crossed it out, I would never kill you. I would have destroyed that goddamn list if I hadn't…" 

She trailed off, and Laurel continued for her. 

"If you hadn't cried yourself to sleep. I know. I heard. I was heartbroken for you but now I'm starting to think that was all just an act. You showing up here, injured, with some story about Sara. By the way, how do you actually know Sara? Because you do know her, and not from college, that much I know. Did you, what, meet at assassins' club or something?" 

For a moment, Ava just stared at her and then she inexplicably started laughing. Not a full on laugh, but more of a quiet, amused giggle that confused the heck out of Laurel, but she was distracted by the way that the shotgun shifted in Ava's lap when the laugh grew bigger and seemed to shake her entire body. 

After a few moments, the laughter subsided and Ava seemed to realize what Laurel was looking at, since she picked up the shotgun again, making Laurel's heart stop for a second, and then expertly emptied out the bullets and threw both to the side.

"I am not going to kill you. I know what I wrote and there is a reason I wrote it, but I was never actually going to do it. My brain just really seems to like dwelling on the worst case scenario and not letting me think of anything else." 

Laurel frowned, relieved that Ava had no weapon anymore but not in any way convinced by her assertion that she had never planned to kill her. After all, she had considered it enough to write it down. 

"I have no idea what that even means but you didn't answer my question. How do you know Sara? And why was what I said so funny?" 

For a moment, she felt like Ava was going to tell her something, anything, but then she just shook her head. 

"I'm sorry. I truly am, but I cannot tell you." 

Laurel scoffed and got up. 

"Okay. I'm going to call the police then." 

That brought movement into Ava, who jumped up from the bed and stood in Laurel's way before she could even so much as make it halfway to the door. 

"Please don't." 

"Yes, well, I think you just established that you're not going to kill me, but that note is still incriminating evidence and if you're not telling me what the hell is going on here, maybe you'll tell my father. Like I said, he's a police detective. I'm sure he would be interested to know how you know Sara too." 

Finally, Laurel felt like she had the upper hand again, only that it didn't feel as good as she had thought it would, seeing that instead of uttering threats or attacking her, Ava just stood there, biting her lip. 

"What if I tell you that I need your help?" 

Laurel raised her eyebrows.

"You really think I'm going to believe that?" 

"You don't have to believe me. Just, please, don't call the police. Not like this. It wouldn't be big enough and I would just disappear into holding for days. I can't wait that long. I can't make her wait that long." 

Shaking her head, Laurel just looked at Ava, frowning. 

"Do you realize that nothing you're saying makes any sense?" 

Ava looked at her, and then straightened her shoulders, seemingly having come to a conclusion. 

"I do need your help. I need to do something, something big, something meaningful, something that will get noticed. I tried to think about it yesterday night but my mind just got stuck at, well…" 

She gestured to the note that Laurel was still holding. Laurel still had absolutely no idea what was going on, but she was done playing. 

"Whatever. I'm calling my father." 

Passing by Ava and going straight to the door, Laurel had every intention of making good on that threat when a quiet voice held her back. 

"Sara is still alive."


	5. The Truth Will Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ava is out of options and goes all in, breaking every rule there is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of the angst is near, now let there be truth. Okay, well, there's some more angst at the end of the chapter, but very short, related to the mention of canon character death – yes, I went there, I couldn't avoid it, so, brace yourselves.

"Sara is still alive." 

Even after the words had come out of her mouth, Ava was shocked that she had said them, that she actually had dared to go there. She had no idea what had made her say this, she just knew that she had to say something, anything, to stop Laurel from calling her father, from making it that much harder for her to get back to her own time as quickly as possible. 

When she had woken up, in the few seconds before the shotgun had been pushed into her face and her training had taken over, she had been glad for being where she was, for having found Laurel, having found so much more here than just a convenient place to stay. 

But then everything had shattered to pieces in the blink of an eye. And all because of that damn list.

After she had taken the weapon, the hurt and fear in Laurel's face had been impossible to bear, breaking her heart. This was not how this was supposed to go. And then that quip with the assassins' club that had her laughing hysterically, not being able to believe how ridiculous all of this was. 

And now that she stood here, having played her last, desperate, trump card, seeing Laurel turn around slowly, hurt and disappointment plain on her face, Ava had no idea where she would go from here. 

"That's a cheap shot. I can't believe you think I would fall for that." 

"It's the truth. Or at least I hope it is." 

"What is that supposed to mean?" 

Ava sighed and decided to tell the truth, at least to a point. She needed this. So much. She held up her still hurting wrist to the injured side of her face.

"You wanted to know how I got these injuries. I was with Sara. We were attacked. Someone was trying to kill us and I got separated from her and landed here. I don't know if she is okay, or…" She choked on that bit, the fear that had held her in its grip since yesterday coming to the surface again. "That is why I am begging you not to call the police. I need to find a way back, as soon as possible. I need to know what happened to her." 

Laurel was just standing there, a deep frown on her face, seemingly processing all that she had said. 

"If that is true, and I'm not saying I believe even a word of it, wouldn't it be a good idea to go to the police? So that they can help you find out if Sara is okay? But how would it help you to kill yourself, or me? And if Sara is still alive, why did she never contact us? It's been two years!"

Ava closed her eyes. This was not going to work. She sighed and decided that she had gone too far already. Time to break all the rules. 

"I am not who I appear to be."

"Oh my god, don't tell me you're an alien!" 

That made Ava open her eyes again, looking at Laurel, who had the most curious expression on her face. 

"Of course not. I'm from the future." 

Laurel let out a dry laugh and raised her eyebrows. 

"Yes, that is far more believable indeed." 

"It's the truth. I work for an agency that monitors the timeline and repairs it when the need arises. I was sent here against my will by a rogue time traveler, a very dangerous individual, which is why I'm so scared for Sara and the rest of her, of our team. The only means I have of getting back is to make a change to the timeline big enough to be noticed. That's why I got stuck on killing myself or you, because Sara would definitely notice that." 

"Yes, that's a great idea, just traumatize her with the news that her sister or her… whatever… friend died suddenly. Like, seriously? Also, I think I watched that episode of The X-Files. Nice try though." 

Ava took a deep breath, torn between laughter and desperation. 

"Again, everything I said is true. I don't know how to prove it to you, other than saying that I really need to get back to Sara. I know you're still stuck on blaming her for getting on the Queen's Gambit, but believe me, one day you will leave that all behind you and you will realize that your love is stronger than that. And it's so important for me to get back because…" Ava took a deep breath, "because I love her too." 

"What? What does that mean, she's like your girlfriend or something?" 

Ava smiled. 

"Or something. I mean, we kissed, a few times, but we're still figuring it out." 

"So what, she's into girls now? I thought she was into boys? And besides that, you're…" Laurel gestured up and down Ava's body, "old. Far too old for her." 

Raising her eyebrows, Ava let out a little laugh. 

"Yes and yes and yes. I think that was my point. I am the same age as Sara, the Sara from my time, well, a little bit older, but only a little." 

Laurel just stared at her, eyes wide, seemingly trying to come to grips with her world having just been turned upside down, still struggling to believe. Suddenly, she started moving to the door. Ava got afraid that she was going to call her father after all but had no idea what more to say to convince her not to, so she just followed her. 

But instead of going to the phone, Laurel sat down on the sofa. 

"I can't take this standing, I can't think." Ava nodded understandingly and also sat down, on the chair Laurel had sat on last night and gave her time to process all she had said. Eventually, Laurel looked up at her. "So, let's say I'm intrigued. Tell me what happened to Sara after the Gambit went down up to your time. All of it." 

Ava hadn't expected this, but she wasn't about to let this opportunity slide out of her fingers. 

"It's a long story." 

"I have time. And you too, at least if you want my help." 

Laurel didn't seem to be inclined to budge even an inch on this, so Ava sighed and closed her eyes, trying to remember Sara's story as detailed as possible. 

She started with the Gambit, how Sara had been floating for days, how she had seen the canary and had been picked up by the Amazo. Not wanting to leave out anything she was a little concerned about Laurel when she got to the painful details of what Sara had endured, first on board the freighter and on Lian Yu and then in the League of Assassins. 

But Laurel just listened, intently, sometimes tears shining in her eyes or even falling down her cheeks, but she didn't interrupt her for more than a quick question or clarification request. When she got to the time when Sara came back to Starling, she didn't leave out how hurt Laurel had been, how she hadn't wanted anything to do with Sara at first. 

There were tears again, but Laurel just nodded slightly, as if this was something she could understand very well. Ava couldn't help but admire how she took everything in strides, her own addiction, her disbarment and return to the bar, Sara's vigilantism, her ties to the League of Assassins and her return to them and to Nyssa.

Not long after that came the hardest part, Sara's death and Laurel's subsequent role as the Black Canary. Then Sara's resurrection and the restoration of her soul, the bloodlust. 

By this time, tears were falling over Laurel's cheeks freely. 

Finally, Ava got to the part that she knew the best, the part in which Rip Hunter had recruited Sara and the other legends for his crusade against Vandal Savage. 

This was the point at which Laurel connected the dots to what Ava had said before.

"So, Sara doesn't work with you at that agency? She's on board a ship?" 

"Yes, a timeship, the Waverider. Actually, at the moment, she is the Captain of that ship and she broke all of time trying to save the lives of her friends, your life, and to restore all of reality. That is why Rip founded the Time Bureau, the agency I work for, to put things back together again." 

"Wow, Captain of a timeship, huh? Nice." She seemed to think of something, "Wait, that's what you meant yesterday, when you talked about her messing things up and your boss still liking her better. So you're like this time agent that does everything by the book and she's, what, a PI of time that keeps messing things up?" 

Ava laughed a little at that. 

"Yes, you could say that. It's actually a pretty good analogy." 

"So, this is what you two are doing, you fight evil time travelers and repair time? Sounds… well, actually, still sounds like an episode of The X-Files, or Doctor Who, but seeing that I really don't think anyone would make all the shit up that you just told me, color me tentatively convinced. Which means you really are stranded here, aren't you?"

"Yes. Yes, I am." 

Now that she was over her initial shock of hearing about all the horrors her sister and herself had endured, Laurel seemed to be quite intrigued by Ava's predicament.

"Okay, why don't you just send a message? Like a letter that she will get, whenever the time you came from is." 

Shaking her head, Ava couldn't help but be impressed with how well Laurel seemed to be taking all of this.

"It's not that simple. I would have to find a way to send a message that I would know she would receive at the exact time and in the exact space in which she is right now and seeing that they are quite likely already back in the temporal zone, which is like a space outside of time and space, where we stay when we want to monitor the timeline without influencing it, I would have to alter something on the Waverider itself and as far as I know, Sara didn't take many personal things with her, if any." 

Laurel took a few moments to process this.

"Okay, so, how about a big sign somewhere here? Like, draw something in a park or somewhere, something people notice." 

"It cannot be just something people notice, it has to be something that goes down in history, literally, something newspapers write about, something that is on TV, that sort of thing."

"So like a scandal?"

"That would work, yes. But I have no idea how to cause one." 

"Oh, well, I do. Welcome to my world, sister." 

Laurel smirked and raised her eyebrows and Ava had to admit that the mention of causing a scandal was a little bit frightening but also very intriguing. And most of all, she was stunned by how Laurel was just willing to believe her and by how many emotions that little term had brought up in her. Sister. 

"Sister?" 

"Well, as of right now, I am inclined to believe you. I mean, part of me still thinks you're some kind of ingenious con person but there's all the things you know about Sara, and all the small things, you know, the way you talk about her… and I mean, really, League of Assassins, vigilantism, death, resurrection, time travel, honestly, if you just wanted to lie to me, I'd think you'd come up with something a bit more believable than all of that. So… if you love Sara and Sara loves you, you're family, right?" 

"Wow. I… thanks."

Part of her told her that this could not end well, but another part, a bigger part, was just really happy and excited to have met Laurel and to have seen this side of her that Sara rarely talked about, a side that was so similar to Sara and yet different. 

Laurel suddenly seemed to think of something.

"Wait, say everything you're saying is true, doing this, working together with me, telling me all of this, Sara's past and her future, my future, it's totally against the rules, isn't it?" 

Ava laughed, but thinking of the implications, sobered up quickly. 

"Very much so, yes. Though, honestly, it's not completely out of the question, because we have a way of erasing memories, which I'm sorry to say is probably what I will have to do to you after all this." 

This seemed to be less distressing to Laurel than Ava had thought, probably because she still felt like most of this came right out of a comic book. 

"Like the flashy thingy they have in Men in Black?" 

Laughing at that reference, Ava nodded. 

"Yes, more or less." 

"Okay, so since I won't remember anyways, where am I in this future of yours? Have we met? I mean, you said that Sara and I get along again, and that I brought her back from the dead and all that, but yesterday I got the feeling you don't actually know me, and right now, you seemed surprised that I would call you sister, I mean, I could be wrong but…" 

She trailed off, clearly having noticed how uncomfortable this sudden change of topic made Ava. She had absolutely no idea how to respond to this, trying to be honest but really not wanting to tell Laurel about her own death. 

"No, we… we didn't know each other. It's… it's complicated." 

"Please don't tell me I'm a giant asshole in the future. Cause I have no problem with you two, you know, Sara can love whoever she wants, I don't care."

"No, no, it's not like that, not at all. It's just, you, you're not… around." 

"What am I, dead?" Laurel said it lightly but the expression on Ava's face clearly shocked her. "Oh my god, I'm actually dead? That's… wow." 

"I am so sorry. I never wanted you to have to know that, I just, I don't want to lie to you, not anymore." 

"No, I understand. It's okay. It's not, but…", she took a deep breath and then continued, "now I'm really glad you're going to erase my memories. I didn't need to know that. But I guess now I completely believe you, I mean, you would have to be a total asshole to make that up and I don't think that's what you are at all."

This time, it was Ava who got up from the chair and crouched by the sofa, taking Laurel's hands in her own, just as Laurel had done for her last night. 

"I'm truly sorry. I don't know what to say, but… I am happy we've met. I'm glad I got to know you, even just for a little while. I truly understand now why Sara always speaks so highly of you." 

Laurel smiled at her, with tears in her eyes. 

"I'm happy to have met you too. And I'm happy Sara has you in her life. She deserves all the happiness."

On an impulse, Ava pulled up and sat next to Laurel on the sofa, putting her arm around the sister she had just met and was already so fond of. Laurel hugged her back and they just sat there for a long while, both reveling in each others' embrace.


	6. How to Cause a Scandal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laurel and Ava prepare for making some waves in the timeline by causing a scandal and ask for someone else's help with that.

Still holding Ava tightly in her arms, Laurel closed her eyes and tried to process everything she had heard in the last hour or so. It had been shocking enough to find out that Sara was still alive but thinking of all the things she had been through, all that pain and what must have been more emotional trauma than one person could handle in a lifetime, let alone just a few years, Laurel realized that, in a way, she was glad to think that her memories of this would be erased.

Not when it came to Ava, no, these moments like the one right now she would sorely miss, but a person could only take in so many years of hardship in an hour. 

It wasn't like she wasn't glad that Ava had told her all of this, she was, and she did believe it now, having been completely convinced that Ava was pulling everything out of her ass at the beginning but slowly realizing that that would be quite implausible. 

Especially her own death. If someone wanted to ensure the help of someone else by telling them they were a time traveler, talking about how they were dead in the future really didn't seem like the best strategy, so it had to be the truth. 

But she didn't want to dwell on it, especially if she would forget about it very soon anyways. For now, they had something to do, and for her, she always processed things better when she had something to do, a plan to come up with, a mission to fulfill. 

As much as she would have liked to stay here with Ava, and as comfortable it was, she still would rather have something to do instead of just being here with her thoughts of herself dying and of Sara having to endure all of those things.

She loosened her embrace and retreated a little bit, Ava taking the cue and also retreating, but staying seated on the sofa next to her. 

Feeling suddenly awkward after this emotional roller coaster, Laurel cleared her throat. 

"Okay, so, causing a scandal. Let's make a plan." 

Ava smiled at her. 

"Yes, let's. Just, could we do that over breakfast? I'm kind of really hungry."

"Oh god, you haven't eaten today. I'm so sorry for that. Now I feel like a really bad host." 

"Well, you had other things on your mind. And me too." 

Laurel smiled at Ava and tilted her head. 

"Even so, that is no excuse for letting you starve. Come on, let's get you some breakfast." She led the way to the table where she had already laid out the breakfast before, but stopped again. "Or would you rather shower and change first?"

Ava seemed to consider that for a moment. 

"Breakfast first, I think. If that's okay?" 

"Of course." 

Sitting down at the table, Ava got something to eat and Laurel made light conversation, well, as light as you could with a suddenly discovered time traveling… relative? Friend? Sister? Whatever she was, a time traveling stranger-non-stranger from the future. 

Laurel didn't want to broach the subject of what they were going to do now until Ava had eaten enough, but in the end it was quite impossible to avoid it, seeing that it was the thing that was on both their minds the whole time. 

How to get Ava back to Sara, to her time. How to cause a scandal big enough that Sara would notice.

"You said you know about scandals. What did you mean?" 

"Well, mostly that old one, you know, where my boyfriend got on that boat with my sister and they both drowned, or so everyone thinks." 

"Right. Sorry." 

"No, it's fine. That's actually going to help us, since everything I do that has any relation to the Queens is already page sixteen material, we just need to think of something big enough to push it to the front page." 

"I was thinking about what you said. About painting a sign. Maybe we could do something like that." 

"In the Queen mansion? I would love that. But if we just break in and graffiti the wall, they'd just cover it all up without anyone the wiser. We need to get reporters and the TV there, while we are doing whatever we are doing. I could say I want to hold a press conference to talk about the Gambit, but I don't think they'd let me and I don't see how that would give us time to paint something on the walls." 

"No, me neither." 

"Unless we don't just break in during the night but, you know, storm the mansion by day, demand reporters and photographers to come or we, I don't know, shoot up the place?" 

Ava shook her head. 

"I am not going to hurt anyone. I couldn't stop my brain from going there yesterday, but I'm not going to do anything that could put anyone in danger. I can't." 

Laurel put her hand on Ava's hand in a calming gesture. 

"I know. I heard you cry last night, remember?" They shared a look of understanding. And then Laurel got an idea. "But what if we don't have to hurt anyone? What if we ask someone for help? With a simple prank?" 

Raising her eyebrows and frowning, Ava didn't seem to follow. 

"With a prank that involves storming a mansion and demanding the press to be there?" 

"Why not? I know someone who would definitely be all for that." Ava looked at her, doubtful, but Laurel knew what she was talking about. "Thea Queen." 

"Oliver's sister? Isn't she about thirteen in this time?" 

"Fourteen. And she's already drinking alcohol and taking drugs, I would say an afternoon pretending to be a hostage and painting things on the walls would probably be less self-destructive. Especially since, if Sara does see it, as we hope, it will never actually happen at all, right, because she will come back to, well, right now, to stop us?" 

"Theoretically, yes, but there's always the chance that she won't see it, that she can't stop it from happening." 

"Yes, but then a fake hostage situation will still have far less long reaching consequences than, you know, killing someone." 

"That is true."

"Then you agree?" 

Shrugging, Ava seemed to still be a little uncomfortable with the idea but didn't seem to be able to come up with something better, at least not something that could be done fast, so that she could go back as soon as possible.

"I guess so. But we need to plan this out perfectly, I don't want anyone to get hurt, let alone you." 

They shared another look, smiling at each other.

"We won't. I know the mansion very well and I'm guessing you know a thing or two about what exactly to do if you want to get reporters to come to you but keep the police away for a while." 

"Can't say I've ever done that, it's more of a thing Sara would do, but I'm sure I can figure it out." 

"Well, if Sara can do it, the two of us can in a heartbeat." 

Now both of them laughed. 

"I would say so." 

They spent the next half an hour planning exactly where to go and what to do, laughing and both having a really great time considering the circumstances. 

Eventually, they felt like they had an actually solid plan and while Ava was going to shower and dress in some of Laurel's clothes, Laurel called Thea, hoping she had actually been right and the girl would be on board with their plan. 

"Hello?" 

"Hi Thea, it's Laurel, Laurel Lance." 

"Yeah?" 

Thea sounded bored and borderline hostile, as always when she talked to her, but Laurel hoped to be able to change that.

"I was wondering if you would like to help a friend and me with a prank we are planning." 

"A prank? On whom?" 

"Your family. Well, your house most of all." 

That seemed to get Thea's attention, as she sounded much more enthusiastic. 

"Will it piss off my mother?" 

Laurel laughed. Should have known.

"Absolutely."

"Great. I'm in."

Laughing again, Laurel explained their plan in more detail and Thea seemed to be quite on board with it, happy to cause some destruction, so happy indeed that Laurel was a little worried. Not that she hadn't been worried about Thea before but she made a mental note to talk to her at some point, before she realized that if everything was going as planned, none of this would happen in the first place, so thinking about it was quite pointless. 

When everything was explained, Laurel hung up and only had to wait a few minutes for Ava to come out of the bathroom, dressed in black pants and a black t-shirt. They had decided to go for black, it seemed fitting for what they were about to do.

Ava looked at her questioningly and Laurel nodded. 

"She's in. I told her I'd call her back when we are ready. Now I'll change and we can buy the stuff we need. And then on to a life as criminals. Sort of. Sara would be proud of us." 

That earned her a laugh. 

"Oh, she definitely would be."

After changing into black clothes herself, they took the stepladder Laurel kept at home for changing light bulbs and then drove to a home improvement store where they bought wall paint, some protective clothes, brushes and other utensils they would need. Having loaded all of it into the car, Laurel checked the bill and raised her eyebrows.

"I do hope Sara will be able to stop us from even starting all of this, this stuff is expensive." 

That seemed to make Ava think of something, as she stopped for a second, standing besides the car. She leaned closer and touched Laurel's arm. 

"Look, if Sara can't come for some reason…" 

"Hey, no thinking like that. She'll come. She's Sara." 

Laurel tried to make light of it, but Ava just looked at her with concern.

"I know, but, if she doesn't, this will be a reality you'll have to live in. And me for that matter."

"Yeah, I'll just convince everyone that it was just a publicity stunt, a harmless joke, I'm sure Thea will help with that, and if they don't believe us, I'll blame everything on you and then bust you out of prison. See, problem solved." 

Now Ava laughed and some of the concern seemed to be alleviated. She was still standing right in front of Laurel, looking into her eyes and now brushing some hair out of her face, gently. 

"You, Laurel Lance, are truly extraordinary." They hugged briefly and when they parted, Ava grinned a half grin. "And for the record, I can bust myself out of prison." 

Laurel rolled her eyes and grinned back. 

"Of course you can." 

They laughed together for a moment and then Laurel frowned a little.

"See, now I kinda don't want this to be erased from the timeline, but I guess we can't have everything, can we." 

"Sadly not, no, but depending on when Sara will come, we'll still have last night." 

"Yeah. We'll still have that." Laurel remembered about the memory erasing thing again. "Well, you will anyways." 

Ava nodded sadly and they both got into the car and drove back to Laurel's apartment to get changed into the loose fitting white painter's overalls they had bought to disguise themselves. 

While their mood was still a little solemn from before, they also laughed as they put the hats that came with the outfits on and looked at each other, both looking like quite convincing painters. 

They had agreed on taking Laurel's shotgun, with the bullets separately, only loading one into the chamber when they were about to give off a warning shot, as to minimize the risk of hurting anyone on accident.

Ava put the bullets into her pants pockets and brandished the shotgun in front of her before hiding it inside the loose painter's overall, closing it again over the gun. It wasn't very comfortable but it would work for a while. She smirked and wiggled her eyebrows and Laurel laughed.

"Now then, let's go and cause a scandal, shall we?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part of the story went a little differently than I originally planned, because Thea wasn't supposed to be in it but she just really wanted to be here and I think she fits in well, so, there you are. It also gives me an interesting outside perspective to play with, so I'm happy she came.


	7. The Art of Making Waves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thea has no idea what is going on, but she'll gladly take this opportunity to take some control back over her life and show the world that she exists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter yet and very likely the longest of the whole fic. I wanted to put all of this in one chapter, so basically, brace yourselves, a lot of things are happening. 
> 
> Warning: there are allusions to what can be seen as suicidal ideation. This is from Thea's perspective and while I don't think she was ever actually suicidal, she also clearly had stretches in which she didn't much care whether she lived or died after the Gambit went down, and that made it into this chapter.
> 
> I also gave Ava a bit of a background that will probably become non-canon at some point, but for now we don't know anything about her, so it's all fair game I guess.

Thea was excited. She knew that this was just another way to cope with her losses, another way to piss off her mother whom she resented for being so callous about everything, for just moving on after dad and Ollie's deaths, but she didn't particularly care, she needed this. 

She couldn't understand how her mother did it, how she just stood in press conferences, led the company, cold and unfeeling, how she never actually talked to Thea at all, especially not about what had happened with the Gambit. About the fact that Thea had lost her lifeline, the light in her life. And that made her feel like she had lost her mother too. 

Maybe doing something like this, something drastic, would get some kind of reaction out of her. Something that showed Thea that she had feelings, that she actually cared. Because she had tried before, she had tried to coax her out of that ice castle she had build around her, but nothing had worked, so now she just tried to numb the pain with alcohol and drugs and partying. 

But what Laurel was offering was so much better. It was an actual statement, a grand gesture, something she could point to and say "I did that". That was what she wanted. What she needed. 

Even so, after Laurel had hung up on her, she had not only gotten the information they had asked her to get but also researched any information she could find on the legal implications of what they were about to do. She assumed that both Laurel and her friend knew those implications very well, what with Laurel being a lawyer and all, but she didn't want to go in blind. 

And while she didn't care much about her own life at this point and didn't exactly know what the goal here was for Laurel and her friend, she still wanted to make sure that both of them would come out of this with as little negative consequences as possible.

Knowing that she would be able to take this all on herself, that this could be her own decision and only hers was very important for her. As weird as it sounded, something like fooling the police and reporters and pretending to be a hostage was exactly what she needed to feel like she had control over her life, a feeling that had been slipping away from her ever since Ollie and dad died. 

But that also meant that she needed to feel as much in control of this as possible, therefore the researching was very important to her. She hoped it was okay for her accomplices that she took on a more active role than they possibly had thought she would, even though Laurel did know her, so she would probably expect that. 

When Laurel called that they were ready and would be at the mansion in ten minutes, Thea felt a rush of adrenaline course through her. This was it. Her chance. Her moment. 

She strolled through the mansion, taking in the staff working there, hoping they wouldn't be too scared, that they would just get out and be okay. As much as she wanted this, she didn't want to hurt anyone. That was why she was glad that her mother was not here, for the first time actually appreciating that she worked so much, going to the company even on a Saturday. 

Of course, she did want to piss her mother off, that was the entire goal here, but she didn't think she could actually face her while doing it. Maybe that was cowardly, but Thea didn't care to think about that too much. Thinking about what her mother would feel, how she would react would mean that she would second guess what she was about to do and that was something she did not want. 

Instead, she nodded to Raisa, asking her to assemble every staff member in the entrance hall in fifteen minutes as per their plan, making a mental note to try and scare her as little as possible. She had always been kind to her and her brother and of all the house staff, Thea liked her the best. 

In what seemed like no time at all, the door bell rang and she jumped, basically running to the door. She wasn't surprised by the outfits the women were wearing, they had discussed this, but she realized that they were also heavily laden with paint cans and that Laurel's friend carried a step ladder over her shoulder. 

Right. They would have to put those things away before starting the show. But first they greeted each other as if this was just a meeting of friends who wanted to paint the house, nothing more. Thea offered to carry something and Laurel happily handed her one of the paint cans. On their way through the house, Laurel leading the way into the room they had deemed most suitable for their endeavor, Thea quietly conversed with them. 

"There are three staff members here right now, all on the ground floor, one in the kitchen, one in the main living room and one in the gallery. I asked Raisa to assemble them all in the entrance hall in" she looked at her watch, "ten minutes. With a little noise it will be easy to get them to leave without scaring them too much and then we can barricade ourselves in to hold out as long as necessary." 

Laurel's friend, who had introduced herself as Ava, gave her an appraising look and then raised her eyebrows at Laurel. 

"I commend your choice of accomplices." 

"Told you." 

They laughed easily and Thea joined in, feeling very proud of herself to have earned that praise. It was weird, thinking that this was the same Laurel Lance she knew, the one she had always thought was uptight and cold and never had any fun. Apparently she had judged too soon. 

Getting to the room they had chosen, they all put down the supplies and then both Laurel and Ava got to work so effectively that Thea was impressed. They first shed their painter's clothes to reveal black garments underneath, very fitting for a hostage situation, Thea thought, then expertly scanned the room, drew the curtains tightly in front of the windows, removed drawers and other things from the wall they were going to paint on and putting the large TV screen in one corner of the room, where it was easy to see from the wall they were painting. 

All of that had only taken about five minutes and now they went back to the entrance hall, where Raisa and two other employees already stood waiting at the far end, not yet having noticed anything out of the ordinary. In some sort of silent check-in Laurel and Ava looked at each other and then at Thea. 

"Are you ready?" 

It was Laurel who asked, while Ava was brandishing a shotgun Thea couldn't help but admire even though she also feared it a little.

"Is that thing loaded?" 

"With one bullet, yes. Which one of these do you hate the most?" 

Ava was pointing at the vases and knick-knacks in the entrance hall. Truth be told, Thea was now so filled with excitement and more than a little fear that it was hard to even comprehend the question, so she randomly pointed to one of the vases furthest away from the staff and the entrance. 

For a moment, neither Laurel nor Ava did anything, they both just looked at Thea, who realized that she hadn't actually answered the question. Laurel took her hand. 

"You can still back down, if you want to." 

Taking a deep breath, she tried to prepare herself for what would happen now. 

"No. I'm ready." 

Another nod between the two women, and then Ava put the shotgun up, not yet pointing at anything in particular, but clearly ready to do so. While Ava moved towards the staff, Laurel nodded at Thea, both standing back a little.

"Showtime." 

In the blink of an eye, Ava brandished the gun in the direction of the staff, carefully not aiming at any of them directly. 

"Listen up, I need everyone to leave this house right now. Call the police and tell them my name is Ava Sharpe and I have Thea Queen and Laurel Lance and if they don't assemble every journalist, TV reporter and photographer of Starling City right here in front of the mansion in one hour, things will get ugly. Do you understand?"

Even with having expected what would happen, it sent chills down Thea's spine. Whoever Laurel's friend was, she could be downright scary if she wanted to, and she didn't even yell, just spoke firmly and with such a cold voice, for a moment it was hard for Thea to remember that all of this was fake. 

The shocked looks of the staff, especially Raisa's, were enough to make Thea feel guilty. But she pushed down that feeling quickly. This was what she had chosen. 

Meanwhile, the staff still stood rooted to the spot, apparently too scared to move. Damn it. Thea decided to do something, so she pretended to want to pass Ava, but was held back by Laurel and put on the most worried expression she could muster, which didn't actually take that much acting to begin with. 

"Please go. Please. Get out." 

That brought some movement into the staff members, who apparently had decided that they did possess some self preservation instincts. 

Ava helped that decision along by now pointing the gun directly at the vase Thea had chosen. 

"I said, do you understand?" She shot the vase and the shock of it made Thea scream, the sheer volume and force of it, as if her entire body was torn apart. She had never before heard a gunshot in reality and it was beyond terrifying. "Go! Get out! Now!" 

But this finally got the staff members to move quickly, all of them running out the front door. Thea still felt sorry for them and guilty for having brought this on, but now it was too late. She was already in far too deep. 

They all went back to the room and barricaded both doors, then paused for a moment.

Looking at Laurel and Ava, Thea could see that they were also rattled by what had just happened. Ava seemed to be horrified by what she had done and Laurel went to her, taking her hand. 

"Hey, hey, it's okay. It's okay." They hugged. "Just stick to the plan, right?" 

"Right." Ava seemed to pull herself together and after a deep breath, turned to Thea. "Your phone. I'll call the press, you two start painting." 

"Aye, aye, ma'am." 

Laurel mock saluted and they all laughed, somewhat alleviating the grim mood. 

In the next few minutes, Ava called all the major press outlets in Starling City, from the list Thea had assembled and saved into her phone before, giving them each the same message, putting the phone on speaker and holding it out to Thea every now and then, who gave her best rendition of scared hostage, while brandishing a paint brush and reveling in the defacing of her family's home. 

Laurel was standing on the step ladder starting to paint letters right under the ceiling while Thea started at the bottom. She had no idea what any of what they were painting even meant, but she didn't care much. For some reason this activity and the fact that sometimes paint was dropping from Laurel's brush onto her, made her want to let out all the guilt and fear she was still feeling in laughter and when a droplet of paint landed right on her nose she couldn't help but giggle. 

This was unexpected. She had thought this would be a freeing experience, somewhat cathartic and probably a little scary, but what she hadn't expected was that it would be funny. At least to a point. Laurel grinned at her from up on the ladder. 

A few minutes into painting, they heard the sirens outside, but ignored them. For now, it was more important to get their message out to the press, so Ava just continued calling them.

"My name is Ava Sharpe. I am in the Queen mansion and I am holding Thea Queen and Laurel Lance as hostages. Send every reporter you have over here right now, or things will end badly." 

Right after the police had arrived, something happened that Thea had not expected. Laurel's phone was ringing. She took it out of her pocket and nodded to Ava. 

"My dad." 

Throwing the phone to Ava, Laurel just continued painting and the only sign Thea could see of her being affected was a slight clenching of her jaw and a little wetness in her eyes. Clearly they had known this would happen and Thea silently chided herself for having forgotten that Laurel's father was a police detective. 

Of course he would know what was going on and of course he would want to speak to his daughter. 

For now, Ava ignored the call and instead called another news station, while Thea and Laurel just painted, in a more solemn mood now. 

Laurel's phone rang again two times but Ava just declined the calls. When she had hung up Thea's phone, she came a little closer to Laurel and Thea. 

"Well, that was the last of them. We'll see how-" in that moment, Thea's phone rang. Ava held it out to her to see who it was and a little cold shower ran over her neck in anticipation of seeing her mother, but it was a number she didn't know. She shrugged and Ava took the phone back. "The police I'd wager. Ready for this?" 

Both Laurel and Thea nodded. 

"In for a penny, in for a pound." 

"Really?" 

Thea smirked crookedly. 

"Hey, I read." 

They all laughed a little nervously and then Ava answered the phone. 

"Hello?" 

"This is Captain Siler with the Starling City police department. We are prepared to negotiate for the safety of the hostages. Who am I speaking with?" 

"My name is Ava Sharpe and my demands are simple, I want the entire Starling City press corps outside of this mansion in forty three minutes. Once they are here, I will tell you the rest of the demands. That is it for now." 

She was about to hang up when they heard a commotion on the other end of the line. Confused, Ava stayed on the phone, just to hear a voice neither of them had expected a few moments later. 

"Let me speak to my daughter. Now." 

Thea saw that both Ava and Laurel were shocked by this but they seemed to recover quickly, Ava showing some emotions on her face that Thea couldn't quite place and Laurel climbing down the step ladder. 

For a few seconds Ava seemed to debate whether to just hang up, but then, looking at Laurel, who nodded, she took a deep breath and held up the phone so that it was in between her and Laurel now. When she spoke, her voice didn't betray any of the emotions Thea could still see plain on her face.

"Detective Lance, I presume. I guarantee you, no harm will come to your daughter." 

"Yeah, don't mind me not taking your word for that. Let me speak to her." 

Ava looked to Laurel, who seemed to steel herself. 

"Daddy." 

"Baby, are you okay? Are you hurt?" 

"No, dad, I'm fine. Everything is fine."

Ava took over again.

"Satisfied, detective?" 

"I swear, if you hurt her, I will put you in the ground. You hear me?" 

There was another commotion on the other end and after some cursing and sounds that resembled a fight, the voice that had started this conversation was back. 

"I am sorry for that. We are prepared to meet your demands, for now. Anything else, something to drink or to eat? Do either of the hostages need medical attention?" 

Admiring the ability of the negotiator to just brush off that emotional moment but not knowing if either Ava or Laurel were able to do that judging by their faces, Thea decided to take the initiative, sprinting towards where they stood and talking into the phone. 

"We're good. Just give her what she wants and get us out of here." 

With that, she took the phone out of Ava's hand and hung up. 

Both women seemed to still be stunned by what just happened and Thea decided to give them a little privacy, going back to painting the wall, but still looking at them out of the corner of her eyes. 

She could see that there were tears in Laurel's eyes now. 

"I didn't think he would…" 

"I know. I know." 

Ava hugged Laurel, who now cried openly. Thea concentrated on painting her letters, feeling like an intruder. Even more than before with Raisa and the other staff members she now felt guilty. Of course, none of this had been her idea, but still, if she hadn't agreed to it, this would not have happened. 

She reached a decision and turned around again, right when the two women parted but still stood close to each other, seemingly trying to regain their composures. 

"We can stop this. Right now. We don't have to go through with it." 

Laurel and Ava looked at her with surprise and something resembling worry. Laurel was the first to speak, her voice still a little shaky. 

"Do you want to stop it?" 

"No. I just thought you would, I mean…" 

Laurel sighed and pressed Ava's hand. 

"No. I'm okay. I'll get back to painting." 

Ava looked at her concerned. 

"Are you sure? Because I agree with Thea, we can stop at any point." 

This time, Laurel seemed to have gained more conviction. 

"I'm not going to give up now. I know why we're doing this and I'm going to see it through." 

Ava had her hand on Laurel's arm and looked into her eyes, in a way that made Thea turn around again. But she still heard what Ava said in a quiet voice. 

"Thank you for doing this with me. I don't know what I would have done without you." 

"Of course. And I'm sure you would have managed, but I'm glad you came to me. I truly am." 

That had been said more lightly, albeit still with a very emotional undertone. 

When Laurel joined Thea on the wall again, Ava went to check on the doors and windows. When she rejoined them, she seemed to want in on some of the painting fun and took another brush, helping them put the final touches. The tone got a little lighter again when Laurel made a joke about how her arms were killing her and Ava looked at her with a frown but also an amused smile. 

"Really, that's where you want to go?" 

"Why not? It's not like I will get the opportunity later." For some reason, that seemed to have been something that shocked both Laurel and Ava, as they just looked at each other for a few seconds and then Laurel started talking, in a tone that seemed apologetic "I'm sorry, I didn't want to-" 

But she never got to finish the sentence because Ava took her brush and shook it gently in Laurel's direction, leaving a spray of paint on her. When Laurel glared at her open mouthed, Ava grinned. 

"What? You feel assassinated?" 

"Oh. That's… that's savage, Miss Sharpe." 

"What are you going to do about it, Miss Lance?" 

After that, they started spraying each other with paint and Thea had to intervene, reminding them that if they got too much paint on themselves, the police and press wouldn't take any of them seriously, with all that paint on them - the two had decided on blue as Ava had said that was her favorite color, so nobody would think it was blood at least - but still. They laughed again and Ava rubbed at the stains on her face and her shirt, then shrugged. 

"It's not like they won't know we've been painting and it's not like we want them to take us too seriously anyways, so I'm guessing it'll be fine." 

"Yeah, probably." 

Laurel and Ava shared a grin, still clearly lost in their inside jokes and Thea's curiosity got the better of her.

"So, how long have you two known each other?" 

They both looked at her and answered at the same time. 

"One night." 

"Really? That must have been some night." 

They shared another look. Then Laurel looked at Thea and nodded, smiling.

"It definitely was." 

For a while, they worked quietly, nearly finished with what they were doing. Ava went back to checking the perimeter – her words – and Thea put the finishing touches on her letters and then, on a whim, painted a small heart next to them. 

When they were done, they all stood a little way away from the wall and admired their work. Thea looked at the other two proudly.

"I'd say we've outdone ourselves. I have no idea what it means but it's very nice."

Laurel nodded. 

"This definitely should get some attention." 

"Speaking of attention, I think our hour should be nearly up. We need to prepare for ending this." 

Laurel went over to the TV and turned it on, finding a station immediately that reported on the hostage situation in the Queen mansion, filming the outside, where clearly a whole mass of reporters were already assembled. 

"Looks pretty good." 

Ava took out Thea's phone again. 

"Okay then, now comes the hard part. Ready?" Both Laurel and Thea nodded and Ava made the call. "I see my demands have been met. That is good. Now, I want at least three camera crews in here, with live reporters, coming in from the entrance hall. When I see myself on TV, I will release the hostages and surrender. And don't even try to send in undercover cops, I will know, believe me." 

"As an FBI agent you would, Agent Sharpe, wouldn't you?" 

That seemed to catch Ava off guard and it confused Thea. Looking at Laurel, she could see that she was also surprised by this information. After a few seconds, Ava seemed to have gained back her composure.

"You found out who I am. Quick but not surprising. And it won't help you. Just send the reporters in, without sending a SWAT team and this will all be over in five minutes." 

She hung up, clearly not willing to discuss this further. Thea just stared at her, as did Laurel, while Ava went to the door and removed the blockade they had build in front of it. 

"A little help here?" 

That took both Laurel and Thea out of their shocked daze and they went over. Laurel seemed to be willing to let what just happened slide, only looking at Ava curiously, while Thea wasn't going to have that. 

She had accepted that she had no idea why the two were doing this, but Ava being an FBI agent? That was unexpected to say the least.

"So, you work for the FBI?" 

"Not exactly. It's complicated." 

"I can imagine. But seeing that my life is on the line here too, I'd kinda like the truth." 

Laurel put one hand on her arm and looked at her sadly. 

"We can't tell you the truth. But we are trying to do something good here. I promise." 

Thea swallowed hard. For a moment she considered just dropping them and writing this off as a bad idea but for some reason she believed them. Even though there was clearly more in play here than she had thought. But it didn't particularly matter in the end, since she was doing this for herself and not for them anyways.

"Okay. But I'm going to do this my way." 

Smiling, Laurel squeezed her arm briefly. 

"Just don't get yourself killed." 

"I don't plan to." 

And Thea realized that she meant that. Even though she had grappled with how little her life seemed worth after the Gambit, she did not want to die. Not here, not now.

After they removed the blockade, Laurel went back to the other side of the room, where she had a good view at the TV, while Thea waited to open the door, with Ava standing right behind her, the shotgun in hand. Thea was thankful that there were no bullets in it, as it looked quite terrifying. 

It didn't take very long until Thea's phone rang and Captain Siler told them that camera crews were ready and waiting outside of the room. 

Thea and Ava looked at each other and then at Laurel, who nodded. Standing back a little and pointing the shotgun at Thea, Ava signaled that she was ready. 

Scrapping up all her courage, Thea opened the door, immediately being greeted by flashing lights and loud sounds. 

"Slowly! One after another." 

Ava took Thea's arm, gently, and guided her back to where Laurel was waiting, careful to always have her between herself and anyone who entered. 

The reporters came in and soon, the room was full of light and sound. Ava gave instructions where they should stand and what to film, mostly the message on the wall, and Laurel half paid attention to what was happening in the room and half to the TV, switching through channels waiting for a live feed to come through. 

Soon enough, it did, and Ava nodded, clearly ready to make good on her promise and surrender. 

But before she could do that, someone in the crowd shouted a question that made something snap in Thea, something she needed to act on. 

"Miss Queen, your mother is worried sick about you, is there something you want to tell her?" 

Thea made a step forward, only vaguely aware that both Laurel and Ava tried to hold her back. She squared her shoulders and laughed, a shrill, disharmonious sound that she didn't even really recognize as her own.

"My mother? My mother is worried about me now? That is rich! But thank you for asking, there is indeed something I want to tell my mother." Looking directly into the camera right in front of her and gesturing at the room as a whole, Thea continued, "Hi Mom. This was my idea. My plan. I did this. Because I want the world to know that I exist. I am here.

"My mother is worried? Where was that worry for the last two years? She didn't give a damn before I played a hostage. She didn't care. She never cared about me, about what I feel, what I am going through. As long as she has her company, nothing else matters.

"Well, guess what, now I matter. Today I am more important than that damn Queen Consolidated. And the entire world knows." She laughed again, this time it was thick with tears and hurt. "That's what it takes to get my mother to care, a fake kidnapping." On a whim, she took the shotgun from Ava, who surprisingly let her, just standing there, rooted to the spot, completely petrified by Thea's outburst, and threw it on the floor right in front of the reporters. "Take the damn gun, it's not even loaded."

After this, Thea felt deflated. For a long moment, seemingly an eternity, nothing happened, everything was quiet. She had done what she wanted to do, she had made her choice. Not able to face the two women who had helped her unwittingly but probably didn't much agree with her doing this, she just stared into the cameras defiantly. 

And then, the world seemed to suddenly explode. With a loud crash what seemed like a dozen people suddenly marched into the room, pointing guns at what seemed like everyone. 

"Police! On the floor, hands behind your heads!" 

Thea felt herself being shoved behind Ava by both her and Laurel, but she was too far gone. This was her moment, her choice. She wiggled out of their grips, ducked under Ava's arm and stood in front of her with outstretched arms, closing her eyes.


	8. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ava is happy that things are over but now she has to face the aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is fine but there are still some angsty scenes in this chapter.

The SWAT team was not a surprise for Ava, she had expected them for a while, especially after Thea's speech. Trying desperately to keep both Thea and Laurel save, she shoved them both behind her, before moving to get on her knees, already putting her hands up. She could see Laurel do the same next to her, but Thea somehow managed to get in front of her again, still standing and now stretching out her arms, as if wanting to tempt fate. 

"No!" 

Pretty sure that she and Laurel yelled it together. Ava put all her effort in dragging Thea down to her knees, Laurel matching her movements on the girl's other side. Thankfully, the anticipated shot never came and Ava said a silent thank you to the Starling City police academy for the training they gave their officers. 

Putting her hands behind her head, Ava sat as still as she could, waiting for the police to get her. With Thea on the floor, now hugging Laurel and crying openly, a huge weight lifted from her heart. This was it. They were safe, hopefully. When two officers approached her from both sides, one putting handcuffs on her, the other one dragging her up, she heard Thea yelling. 

"No! It was my idea. Don't you understand? It wasn't her, it's not her fault." 

Hoping that Laurel would be able to calm her down Ava's heart went out to the girl. She had had reservations against teaming up with her and while she had been great for the most part, Ava felt incredibly guilty to have put her through this, even with her hijacking everything at the end and putting herself at risk. 

She hardly noticed being told her Miranda rights, because now there was even more movement in the room and a familiar voice calling Laurel's name. 

The last thing she saw before being led out of the room was detective Lance running over to his daughter and Thea and hugging both, a weird sight given their history. But after the day's events this seemed to be appropriate. She smiled a little, and then it truly hit her. They did it. They actually did it. 

If Sara didn't see this, then she didn't know what she would see. 

Outside of the mansion, there were even more reporters waiting and microphones were shoved into her face. Now that everything was over, she felt weirdly giddy and a huge grin spread over her face. 

"Find me! I love you." 

She basically yelled it, right before being shoved into the police car, shocked by her own courage. But all bets were off now. They were done. The only thing left to do was to wait for the timeline to be changed. For her and everyone here to stop existing. 

Wondering how long that would take and how it would feel, Ava went through being driven to the police station and being processed without even much realizing what was happening. 

Only when she sat in the interrogation room, alone, handcuffed to the table, she allowed her brain to start worrying about Laurel and Thea again. She really hoped that they were okay. Of course, when, hopefully not if, Sara came back to change things, none of this would matter anyways, but for now they were still here. 

And Thea would still have to deal with what she had done. Ava was no lawyer – that thought made her desperately want to talk to Laurel but she tried to suppress that impulse – but she was familiar with the law enough to know that if the Queen family didn't press charges, and after Thea's performance that seemed unlikely, there was no crime that could be persecuted. 

Well, other than misuse of public services, or whatever it was called if someone staged a crime without there actually having been one and the police spent resources to solve it. And the shooting of the vase of course, but then again, the shotgun was legally registered to Laurel, and she herself, well, her alter ego in this time, had a permit for using guns. 

Which was a bit of a murky ground, clearly, but with Moira Queen's influence, Ava was relatively sure this would go away, thankfully not without a huge scandal though, which had been their goal to begin with, so that was good. 

She only hoped Laurel would not face disbarment for this. Knowing from Sara how much being a lawyer meant to her, she didn't want her to have to give up what she loved. But there was the hope that Thea would use her mother's influence to make sure that wouldn't happen. 

And then there was Laurel herself who probably still had a whole lot of tricks up her sleeve. After all, it wasn't like she hadn't been disbarred by her time already once and then had come back stronger than ever. 

No, if truly everything failed and neither Sara nor the legends nor the Time Bureau were coming to change the timeline – a possibility Ava didn't even want to think about since it brought up the question why they wouldn't be able to do that, but that still popped up in her head inevitably – then they would be fine here. 

Or, if not, she would stay true to what she had said to Laurel and bust herself out of prison. Not that she couldn't do that, she had learned enough about prison breaks just from Sara's file and she herself also had a few ideas how to do such a thing. And Laurel would be fine. She had to be.

After playing all these scenarios in her head for what seemed like hours, her thoughts went to Sara and how she would react when she saw the mess they had surely made of the timeline, even if this day didn't have lasting consequences other than a scandal that would be connected to the Queens and the Lances forever. As she imagined Sara's face when getting the news, she couldn't help but smile widely to herself. 

A few moments later someone came into the room, thankfully. It had been a long time already since she had been brought in and she needed to hear from Laurel and Thea. Except all feelings of relief immediately dissipated when she realized who it was. Detective Lance. This was not good, especially not considering his angry expression.

"I really hope it's not my daughter that makes you grin like that."

Confused for a second, Ava reminded herself that one of the walls in this room was glass and she hadn't been paying attention. He had seen her smile about Sara. And he thought it was about Laurel. Okay, this was getting complicated. She straightened her back and nodded as an acknowledgment of the detective.

"Detective Lance. How nice to see you again." 

As answer, the detective threw some files on the table and then sat down, clearly not in the mood for pleasantries. 

"Who are you and what were you doing with my daughter?" 

"Maybe you should ask her." From his expression, it was clear that this was the wrong thing to say and Ava immediately realized why. "Oh, you did ask her. I assume you didn't like her answer." 

With a loud bang his fist landed on the table and Ava was thankful to her training, which made her resist the urge to flinch. 

"Damn it, this is not a game. You abducted my daughter. You made me think you would hurt her. You made me think I would lose another daughter." 

The emotions in his voice, so similar to the ones she was feeling actually did make Ava flinch, thinking of Sara, but she pulled herself together. If the worst case scenario became true, this needed to be sorted out. Hoping to say the right thing in light of Thea's actions, she shook her head.

"I did nothing of the sort. We both participated in an attempt to help Thea Queen, that is all. What you thought is your business. Neither of us wanted to hurt anyone." 

Detective Lance looked like he was about to attack her and for a moment Ava was scared. This had not been planned. But then, he pulled himself together and, still clearly agitated, opened the file in front of him.

"Who are you?" 

"I am Ava Sharpe." 

"Yes, that is what your fingerprints say. And your face, sort of. But the FBI swears that Agent Ava Sharpe has been in Utah on a case for the last twenty four hours. They even sent evidence of her being there right when you broke into the Queen mansion." He took what was clearly surveillance photos out of the file and threw them over the table to her. She didn't have to look at them to know what they showed, she remembered it well. "Care to explain?" 

Ava decided that she had enough. 

"If you are going to charge me with something, please do so and then I will call my lawyer. If not, I'd like to go now." 

The detective seemed to consider this for a moment, but then he just continued, as if he hadn't heard her. 

"What does the message on the wall mean?" 

"I am still waiting for formal charges." 

"Who did you want to find you? Who was the message for?" 

"I will not say anything without my lawyer present." 

"If this was all Thea Queen's plan, why the message in your name?"

"If you are not going to charge me-"

"Why did you choose my daughter? What does she have to do with all of this?" 

"I am within my rights-" 

This was the straw that broke the camel's back. Detective Lance jumped up out of the chair and banged both fists on the table.

"Rights? As far as I'm concerned, you have no rights. If it was up to me, I'd put you in a dark cell and throw away the key. Whatever you said to my daughter that makes her believe in you, I'm not buying it for a second. You are bad news and I will do everything I can so that you never get close to my daughter ever again." 

That outburst left Ava shocked and speechless. She had no idea what to do now, not daring to say anything, afraid to provoke him even more. Of course, she had known that Sara's and Laurel's father was a volatile man, but to be on the receiving end of that, especially as a person who loved his daughter, maybe already both of his daughters, was quite disconcerting.

Thankfully, she didn't have to react at all as in that moment the door opened and she heard a very welcome voice, though the tone wasn't very familiar, firm and ice cold. 

"What is going on here?" 

The sight of his daughter seemed to agitate the detective even more, in light of what he had just said and when Ava couldn't help but smile at Laurel, he immediately jumped at her again, almost literally if Laurel hadn't physically held him back. 

"I will wipe that grin off your face!" 

"Stop! Dad! What the hell? Do you want me to bring you up on charges?"

"You wouldn't dare!" 

"Try me!"

Both breathing heavily, father and daughter were standing nose to nose and Ava was now actually afraid that this would end in physical violence, already thinking of ways to defend Laurel if necessary, when the detective finally seemed to see what he was doing and put up his hands, retreating a few steps. 

"I'm sorry, baby, I'm just…" 

"I know." Nobody said anything or even moved for what seemed like a long time, but then, Laurel took a deep breath and stepped closer to the table, Ava recognizing that she was putting herself in between her father and her. "Now, have you charged my client?"

Still clearly trying to calm down, the detective looked at her incredulously. 

"She is not your client." 

Laurel raised her eyebrows. 

"I beg to differ. And I hope she hasn't asked for a lawyer at any point when you decided to do this little interrogation of yours. Because that would look bad for you." 

Wanting to tell Laurel not to go too far but also knowing that she knew her father better than she did, Ava remained quiet, just watching as the detective pulled himself together.

"She is not being charged, as you well know. This wasn't an interrogation, just a conversation." 

"Well, then, the conversation is over. I will take it from here. If you could please open the handcuffs." 

Now seemingly deflated, he simply nodded, looking at Laurel with a mixture of disappointment and lingering anger and refusing to look at Ava at all, probably because he didn't trust himself enough to stay calm if he did.

"I'll need to get the keys from the desk sergeant." 

"Then do that." 

After he had gone to the door, slowly, as if there was a heavy burden on him, he did look back to Ava, with an expression of disgust on his face Ava truly hoped never to see again. Then he was gone and for a few seconds, the two women just looked at each other, still trying to process what just happened. 

But their happiness to see each other again despite everything won out and when Laurel sat down, she immediately took Ava's hands and smiled at her, so brightly that Ava couldn't do anything but smile back. 

"Hey." 

"Hey." 

"I wasn't sure if I'd see you again. I mean, with the whole," Laurel lowered her voice, "timeline resetting thing. When does that happen exactly?" 

"I don't know. Could be minutes, or days. Depending on when they see it. Technically, we aren't even here now, or at least I very much hope so." 

"Well, if something does go horribly wrong and we are stuck here, at least neither of us will face any legal consequences, Thea made sure of that." 

"Yes, I surmised as much. What happened?"

"She made a deal with her mother, having Moira make all charges go away with her money and influence in exchange for going to therapy, never taking drugs again and not drinking until she's twenty one. Of course, Moira jumped on it. And in the public, Thea is painting both of us as heroes who saw her pain and desperation and helped her in an unusual but effective way.

Basically, she said we saved her life and while nobody is very happy with this, nobody wants to go against the Queens either, so we're pretty much in the clear." 

"Wow. I guess I truly was right when I commended you on your choice of accomplices." 

"Yeah. Who knew she was such a criminal mastermind?" They both laughed together, finally at ease again. Then Laurel smiled and held Ava's hands even tighter. "If this is our last moment together before we stop existing, I just want to tell you that I am very happy to have met you and to have had this adventure with you." 

Ava smiled and also held Laurel's hands tighter. 

"Me too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have developed an entire AU of my own fic based on the timeline not changing. LOL Ooops.


	9. On the Other Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara is worried about Ava and then gets news that surprise her greatly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, we're finally getting to Sara's side of things. Yay! 
> 
> Still some angst, especially a non-canon character death, though it's very temporary. I have no idea how to warn for that but I amended the warnings on the whole fic because I wanted to play it safe.

"Gideon, is there anything new?" 

"No, Captain, there are no apparent changes in the timeline pertaining to Agent Sharpe. I am sorry." 

Sara sighed, closing her eyes again and then resuming her pacing. Even Gideon had stopped being snarky, just repeating the same sentence every twenty minutes or so, every time Sara asked the same question. She knew Gideon would inform her immediately if something had changed, if there was any sign of Ava, but she still couldn't stop herself from asking. 

The last fifteen hours had been among the longest in her life and that was saying something. While Sara was glad that they had been able to return to the Waverider without any casualties, just a few injuries that were easily fixed, Ava being missing somewhere in time was not something she had any way of handling. 

For the first two hours she had just paced around the parlor, asking Gideon for news every five minutes or so, rebuffing every attempt of her teammates to get her to rest, to sleep, even to eat something, coming up with plans to save Ava that she knew wouldn't work seeing that she didn't even know where she was. 

Her inability to do anything at all was slowly driving her to desperation, so she had decided to train instead of just pacing and for the next four hours had driven herself to exhaustion in the gym, needing to do something, anything with her body other than just waiting.

Only when Ray approached her with a cup of tea and looked like a kicked puppy when she glared at him had she allowed herself to stop and fall into a chair with her head in her hands. 

She had taken the tea and had then found herself in her quarters hours later. At first furious, thinking that someone had slipped something into the tea, Gideon informed her that she had simply succumbed to her exhaustion and had fallen asleep in the chair, after which Mick had carried her to her quarters, so that she would be more comfortable and get some much needed rest. 

Not remembering any of that, Sara had realized that she truly had been exhausted, which was not surprising seeing what they had been through and what she put her body through on top of that. Having slept six hours, she had woken up with the hope of hearing some news from Ava, but there was nothing. So she had gone back to the parlor and to her pacing, being kept company by Mick, who was just sitting in one of the chairs, drinking his beer, his presence somehow soothing. 

Most of the other team members made themselves scarce, knowing that she needed her space, that she couldn't deal with company other than Mick's silent kind right now. Amaya brought her food at some point, with Zari trailing behind her with a bag of Cheetos she left for Sara, both gestures that made her smile. 

Truly appreciating the effort her team members made, she wished she could articulate how much it meant to her that all of them were trying to be there for her. 

Realizing that she had indeed been hungry, she ate some of the food, knowing that she needed to keep her strength up if she wanted to save Ava from whatever time period she had landed in and she made a mental note to thank everyone for their support later. After Ava was safely back on board.

"Captain. I am detecting changes in the timeline that are connected to the name Ava Sharpe." 

Feeling a rush of adrenaline course through her, her heart seemingly falling into her stomach, she was nearly unable to reply, to say anything.

"Show me." 

Gideon pulled up newspapers and TV reports on the screen, showing a familiar sight. The Queen mansion. What was this? 

"Apparently, on May 23rd, 2009, Ava Sharpe, who was later thought to be an imposter, and Laurel Lance together with Thea Queen staged a hostage situation in the Queen mansion, leaving behind this message on one of the walls." 

The screen showed a wall on which the message was clearly visible, in big blue letters.

AVA SHARPE  
05.23.2009  
WITH LAUREL  
P.S. I LOVE YOU

Sara heart seemed to stop beating for a second. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry of relief, so she ended up doing both. Gideon still pulled up more material from that day, among it footage of what was clearly Ava, being pushed into a police car and right before that yelling at the cameras, at Sara, to find her and that she loved her. 

Not sure if she was able to speak right now, too many feelings raging inside of her, Sara was thankful when Amaya appeared at her side, together with the others, clearly having been alerted by Gideon. It was Amaya who spoke.

"Gideon-" 

"I've already plotted a course to Starling City on the morning of May 23rd, 2009." 

"Thank you." 

Amaya smiled at Sara, who smiled back, still not trusting her voice, but then thinking of something. 

"Gideon-" 

"And I have uploaded all the material I could find pertaining to this day into my database, so that it will be safe when the timeline changes again." 

Sara chuckled. Gideon knew her far too well. She took a deep breath, still laughing and shaking her head about what Ava had gotten herself into. With Laurel, apparently.

"Everyone strap in, let's save that dork." Already halfway to her chair on the bridge, Sara suddenly thought of something else and curiosity got the better of her, so she went back into the parlor. "Wait, Gideon, can you show me the consequences this has on the timeline? Anything of note?" 

"It does not appear so, Captain. While this day has caused quite a scandal, all events in the following years still happened as they happened before." Sara nodded, knowing that Ava most likely tried to keep out of events as best as possible after having done this to get Sara's attention – something she still couldn't quite believe she had actually done – but then Gideon pulled up something else. "Oh, it seems there is another change, on April 6th, 2016." 

The shock came too sudden, Sara couldn't even comprehend it. She knew that date. Far too well.

"No…" 

But Gideon didn't seem to notice her distress and continued. 

"A female body was found in the midst of the Iron Heights prison riots, a body that had not been there in the original timeline."

Knowing in her heart what she would see now, Sara tried to brace herself but she was not prepared. Not at all. She took a step back and pressed her fist into her mouth to stop herself from screaming, hardly noticing the gasps around her, everything seemingly covered in a haze all of a sudden. 

Then she noticed movement to her left and heard Mick's grunt, even though it was somehow quiet, as if the world had been muted. 

"Take that away!"

She closed her eyes before Gideon could comply, in her mind still seeing the dead eyes that had been staring at her from the screen. Ava's eyes. She let out a sob, not able to contain it any longer. 

Her mind was racing. It wasn't hard to piece together what had happened, Ava had tried to save Laurel's life and Damien Darhk had killed them both. Tears were now streaming down her face, without her even noticing. She knew logically that this was not cemented yet, that she could and would save Ava, but seeing her like that on the screen, seeing her dead body was a shock she had not in any way been prepared for. 

Feeling a hand on her shoulder and hearing a soft voice, she slowly came back to the present. 

"Sara? We will stop this from happening." Sara nodded, still not in any way recovered and happy that Amaya seemed to be taking charge. "Everyone, strap in, we are going to time jump. Gideon?" 

"Yes, Miss Jiwe. The coordinates are programmed, the ship is ready to jump." 

Thankful for Amaya gently guiding her to her chair, Sara tried her hardest to concentrate on what had to be done now. The procedure of jumping through time was so familiar to her that it calmed her down a little bit, enough to sort out her feelings and her thoughts and to be able to focus on the mission. 

When they had landed on the roof of Laurel's apartment building in 2009, obviously in stealth mode, Sara felt a little more confident that she would be able to do this, even though she was still shaken up. 

Addressing her team, all of them looking at her expectantly and with varying amounts of pity and concern, she tried to sound as stable as possible. 

"I will do this alone, but I want you guys to be ready in case I need backup for something. If I, if we are not back in two hours, I want you to come in and get us, understood?" 

Everyone nodded and Sara walked towards the exit on still unsteady legs, focusing her mind on the mission. When she took the memory eraser from the parlor, she thought about how much she hated having to do this to her own sister, but in light of what she had just seen, she knew that she had to. 

Rip had been right. If she tried in any way to change the timeline, to save Laurel, she put too many others at risk and that was something she could not do. She couldn't risk losing anyone else. Not Ava, not anyone on her team, not her dad, not Ollie or Thea. None of them. Even if that meant not getting her sister back. 

Sneaking into Laurel's apartment building was easy, and now she was impatient, she needed to see Ava, she needed to make sure that she was there, so she practically ran up to Laurel's apartment, knocking frantically on the door, making sure that she was clearly visible as to not scare Laurel and Ava. 

After a few moments, the door opened and Sara finally felt like she could breath freely again. Ava was standing in front of her, barefoot and in a blue pajama that was clearly Laurel's. At this moment, Sara was sure she had never found her more beautiful than right now. A big grin spread over her face, tears still running down her cheeks and she couldn't help it, she practically threw herself at Ava, hugging her tightly. 

"You're alive! You're here!." 

Seemingly a little surprised, Ava quickly recovered and hugged Sara just as tightly.

"Of course I'm here. You found me." They seemed to stay like that for an eternity when someone closing the door behind them caught their attention. Sara was still recovering as they parted and Ava cleared her throat. "I take it our plan didn't go so well, then?" 

That made Sara laugh. 

"Oh, no, it worked perfectly. Didn't think you had that in you, Agent Sharpe." 

Ava smiled with something that seemed like pride.

"Well, I had help." 

She looked to her side, and Sara knew that now she had to face what she had been both looking forward to and dreading. Turning to her side, she realized she was very much not prepared for this, not after the emotional roller coaster she had just been through. There were already tears forming behind her eyes again, ready to spill out. She closed her eyes, not ready yet.

But she knew she couldn't avoid it, and part of her wanted it so much. Wanted to see Laurel again. See her alive, no matter for how short a time. 

Opening her eyes, she knew it didn't matter for how long, having Laurel here, with her, would always be worth it. Taking in her sister's face, the many emotions that were showing on it, Sara took a step forward, smiling tentatively. 

"Hi." 

Before she could do or say anything else Laurel had taken two steps forward and pulled her into a tight embrace. 

"Sara."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A word of warning, brace yourselves for the next chapter, as I am not going to save Laurel, at least not by keeping her memories intact and preventing her death, sorry, I thought about it long and hard (I mean that), but I just couldn't find a way to do it. I did come up with a solution that works for me though, so while I'm not going to save her in this way, I am going to do something, stick around for the epilogue to see what.
> 
> I also want to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone following this fic, especially those of you who commented. I do read every comment and they always make my day, so thank you again, I genuinely appreciate it.


	10. Saying Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laurel needs to say goodbye to the sister she had just found again and to the other sister she had never expected to find.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously quite a sad chapter, due to the subject matter, so, be prepared.

They were sitting at the table, Ava still more or less eating but mostly both of them planning out their fake hostage taking in the Queen mansion, which took more and more of an actual form now. It was still hard to believe for Laurel that she was seriously considering something like that, but she had chosen to help Ava and she would not back down now. 

Suddenly, there was a loud and frantic knock on the door. Both Ava and Laurel nearly jumped and both had the same thought, a thought that Laurel articulated. 

"Sara?"

Ava shook her head a little bit and made a small shrugging motion. 

"Possibly. Or possibly also one of the people we were fighting against, who could have also found me here." 

"You never mentioned that!" 

Tilting her head a little, a guilty expression on her face, Ava shook her head again.

"Honestly, I didn't think about it until right now. I was too focused on getting back." She now stepped closer to the door. "Would you mind if I open? Just in case." 

"Go ahead. This is your territory. Unless it's like, Jehova's Witnesses or something like that." 

She grinned a little and Ava returned it, before walking to the door and looking through the peephole. Immediately, she changed her entire stance and opened the door before Laurel could even consider going there too. She didn't really have time to think anything about Ava just opening the door without asking her first, seeing that right after that, Sara came in and more or less threw herself at Ava. 

Laurel's heart seemed to stop. Sara. Even though she looked different, older, this was clearly Sara. Which meant, everything that Ava had said was true. Not that she hadn't believed it, but to see irrefutable proof like this was something completely different. It seemed like too little air made it into her lungs, far too little. Forcing herself to take deep breaths, Laurel finally walked over to the door, that was still standing open, clearly forgotten by the two women in front of it and closed it. 

That seemed to take Ava and Sara out of the private space in which they had been, parting a little but still standing very close to each other, still touching. Laurel noticed that Sara was not looking at her and while part of her knew the reason, she needed her too, she needed her sister to acknowledge that she was here. 

When Ava said something about their plan and Sara responded, still all Laurel could do was stare at Sara and wish that she would finally look her in the eyes, that she could make sure that this was real. 

And then she did. She turned to Laurel, looked her in the eyes and smiled that smile Laurel had missed so so much. 

"Hi." 

Losing all ability to think clearly, Laurel just stepped closer to Sara and threw her arms around her. 

"Sara." Tears now falling on her face, Laurel couldn't do anything other than hugging Sara and revel in her hugging her back. In her being alive. Being here. "I missed you so much." 

"I missed you too." 

After a few more moments, they parted reluctantly and sat down on the sofa, Sara leaning into Laurel, who was happy just sitting here and holding her in her arms. Ava excused herself to shower and get dressed, clearly wanting to give the two a little privacy to talk. 

Except now, sitting here, with Sara looking so different, so put together and sure of herself even with tears still in her eyes and on her cheeks, but still so much the same, so much the girl she had known, the sister she had lost, Laurel had no idea what to talk about with the person she had been closest to her entire life but now didn't actually know anymore. 

Her sister who was suddenly not only not dead but also a person who had gone through hell, quite literally, and the Captain of a timeship, responsible for things Laurel couldn't even slightly imagine.

That was not something anyone had a conversation guideline for. And Sara seemed to recognize that too, because she just sat there, smiling slightly, snuggling into Laurel without talking. 

Looking at her, at the sister she had at once hated to much and missed so much, she just said the first thing that came to mind. 

"I'm sorry." 

Sara looked up at her with a curious expression. 

"For what?" 

"For hating you because you got on that boat with Oliver. For being angry and blaming you for everything that went wrong in my life. Everywhere, I was the girl whose boyfriend went on a boat with her sister and then they both drowned. I felt like, like I had this anchor around my neck and it was pulling me down, drowning me." 

Sara just looked at her sadly, tears in her eyes again. 

"I know. I'm sorry too." 

For a while, neither of them said anything, just being here, with each other, trying to comprehend what they had been through. 

"Ava said that in the future, we are best friends again. That I brought you back to life, whatever that means." 

Smiling, Sara nodded. 

"She's right. We've been through a lot but we always pulled through." 

That seemed to remind her of something and suddenly, she seemed to close off, the smile gone and instead an immense sadness on her face. Laurel didn't have to guess to know what she was thinking about and she didn't want her to have to hold back.

"Until I die." 

Now Sara was clearly shocked. 

"She told you about that?" 

"No. I guessed. I don't really want to think about it, but I understand that you do." 

Sara closed her eyes and leaned her head on Laurel's shoulder. When she spoke again, it was in a quiet, hollow voice. 

"I had the power to save you. To change reality. But I chose not to. I chose not to save you because I didn't know what else it would change. I didn't know how many other lives would be affected. I didn't want to hurt anyone. And I lost you. Again." 

Laurel hugged Sara tightly, shocked by that admission. She had no idea what it meant but it sounded like it had been the hardest thing to do. Desperately trying to lighten the mood a little, Laurel sat up a little bit, prompting Sara to look at her. 

"I'm here, now. Anything you want to talk about, we can talk about now. I mean, you're going to erase my memories anyways, so it doesn't matter, right?" 

Sara raised her eyebrows and shook her head slightly, smiling a little. 

"Is there anything Ava didn't tell you?" 

Pretending to think really hard about that and making Sara laugh, Laurel did come up with something. 

"Are you happy?" 

The smile still lingered but now there was also another expression on Sara's face that Laurel had never seen before. Content. 

"Yes. Yes, I am." Looking at Laurel, she amended quietly, "as happy as I can be without you." 

Laurel hugged her, and for a while, they just stayed like this, happy to still have each other even though they both knew it was going to be over very soon. 

When they were both ready to talk again, they seemed to have come to the quiet understanding not to talk about death any longer but instead to make the best of the time they still had right now. 

"So, tell me about Ava. How did you two meet?" 

"Oh, that she didn't tell you?" 

They both laughed. 

"Not in any detail, no. She just said you were like a PI of time while she was like a time agent and you kept messing things up while she was trying to fix them. And that her boss still liked you better and she was jealous." 

"Really? Well, that's basically it already. Other than that she pointed a gun at me when we first met." 

"What?" 

"To be fair, we kinda broke into the Time Bureau. Or at least, came in unannounced so I guess she was within her rights to do that. And I disarmed her really quickly anyways." 

Laurel laughed and tilted her head in acknowledgement. 

"Of course you did." 

"She also shot at my ship but I totally won a game of chicken with her ship after that, and it was much bigger." 

"I don't know if I even want to know what that means." 

They laughed together and talked about other things, settling into a comfortable ease that had existed between them before Oliver, before the Gambit, before everything. 

At some point, Ava came back from the bathroom, and while she seemed to feel like a bit of an intruder, Laurel just waved her over and she sat down on the sofa by Sara's side, holding her hand. Laurel was surprised by how much this felt right, as if Ava had always been a part of their family somehow. As if this was how it was supposed to be. 

But they all knew that this wouldn't last and far too soon, Sara announced that if they didn't want her team barging in here, which, from Ava's expression, they really didn't want, they needed to go. 

Laurel had dreaded this. She knew it was necessary, she knew she had to go through the coming years naturally, had to meet Sara again and be angry with her, had to lose her yet another time. But knowing that retaining her memories of this night could irreparably damage the timeline and influence far more lives than just hers and Sara's didn't make it any easier. 

When they all got up, Sara hugged her as if she never wanted to let her go, and Laurel responded in kind. But they had to part eventually, both crying now. 

"Last time, I didn't get to say goodbye. This time, I don't want to. I love you. I love you so much." 

"I love you too." 

After a silent conversation with Ava, Sara gave her a device, the memory eraser Laurel assumed and after smiling one last sad smile at Laurel, practically fled to the door and out the apartment. 

Also with tears running down her face, Ava hugged Laurel. 

"I will miss you, sister." 

Not being able to say anything, Laurel just nodded, standing her ground even though every fiber of her being told her to run away, run after Sara and beg her to not do this, to somehow take her with them. But she knew that was impossible. 

Smiling sadly, Ava held up a device in front of Laurel, and then, after a bright flash, her world became hazy and for a moment it felt like she had no idea where she was or what she was doing.

Somehow she had the feeling there had been someone in her apartment, right now, someone who was important to her. Shaking her head, she told herself that she probably just dreamed that and went back to her desk to work on the cases she had on Monday.

But still, there was this lingering feeling that somehow she was missing something. 

Something important.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was never supposed to be the last chapter (I don't like sad endings), I was going to end on a more positive note with more of Ava's and Sara's reunion and while I will still do that, it will most likely now be in an epilogue that also will have a way to bring Laurel back (probably not one anyone is expecting though), so stay tuned.


	11. Epilogue - A New Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After having to say goodbye to the sister she had just met, Ava comes up with a plan that will change everything without changing the timeline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is primarily for firedancer34, who brought up the possibility of saving Laurel's life, something I honestly had not thought about when starting this fic, since the show did far too good a job at making her death completely airtight and unchangeable. But, after literally hours of thinking about it, I came up with a (really complicated, bear with me) way to do it. I hope you all enjoy it!

_They were sitting in a spacious, bright apartment, it's owner seemingly dancing around them, as if she could hardly contain the energy inside of her, all of them talking, laughing. There was still a lot to explain, a lot to follow up on, but for now, Ava just watched Laurel and Sara sitting next to each other, holding hands and the happiness on their faces took away the last of the doubts she had about what she had done._

_In this moment, it didn't matter how many rules she had broken. The fabric of reality could come undone for all she cared. This had been the right thing to do._

***

After taking a shower and getting dressed, in her pantsuit instead of the clothes Laurel was going to lend her, Ava went through Laurel's apartment and made sure that there were no signs of her ever having been here. As much as this was a very important activity, she also took her time because she wanted to give Sara and Laurel the chance to catch up with one another again, to talk about the things they needed to talk about alone. 

Knowing that this was important for both of them, even though it was hard because they would have to inevitably say goodbye, she took her time in the kitchen, washing and putting away her breakfast dishes. But eventually there was nothing left to do and if she was honest, she herself wanted to spend some more time with Laurel too. 

So she came back to the sofa and sat down next to Sara and it was as if they had always known each other, as if they had always talked like this. Far too big a part of her was longing to break all the rules, to break the timeline and just stay here, with Sara and Laurel. 

But that was impossible and when Sara grew quieter and seemingly restless, Ava knew that their stolen time was about to end. Which was confirmed by Sara saying that her team would be here soon. A black cloud seemed to descent on them with that, all of them having known that this would come but having tried to keep it away as long as possible. 

Now they couldn't wait any longer. All of them got up and Sara hugged Laurel in a way that made Ava tear up and wish with all her being that things could be different, that there was something, anything she could do. But there wasn't anything to do. 

When they parted and Sara told Laurel she loved her, Ava looked at Sara and held out her hand, in a clear gesture that she would take that burden from her, that she would do what was necessary so that Sara didn't have to. After a few seconds, Sara nodded barely visibly and gave her the memory eraser before running out of the door. 

Ava was openly crying now and hugged Laurel. 

"I will miss you, sister." 

Not saying anything, not even moving a muscle, Laurel just stood there, tears on her face but otherwise unyielding, determined. A part of Ava wished she would rage, she would scream at her and attack her for doing this, for taking this away from her. But she knew that that would have just made it more difficult, more impossible than it already was. 

Smiling sadly, she flashed the machine and hurried to the door, knowing that the haze the flash left the person in would only last for a few seconds. 

In the corridor, she found Sara leaning on the wall, her eyes closed, her hands in fists, tears running down her face. Ava didn't know what to say so she just hugged her and Sara held on to her tightly, burying her head into her shoulder, crying even more. They stayed like that for a long moment, before Ava gently brought their faces together so that they could look at each other. 

"Let's go home." 

Sara nodded. Ava gave her a kiss on the forehead and together they made their way back to the Waverider, where the crew welcomed them enthusiastically. There wasn't really anything they needed to do now, so Sara, still clearly shaken but determined to be the Captain, thanked everyone for their help and dismissed them, after having Gideon fly the ship into the temporal zone. 

With a silent understanding between each other, both Ava and Sara headed for the Captain's quarters, where they landed on Sara's bed, first just holding each other and later talking and just generally reveling in having each other back but also mourning Laurel together. 

Eventually, they both fell asleep in each others arms. 

In the following days, neither Ava nor Sara wanted to leave each other's side. Both of them longed to spend as much time together as possible, talking about Laurel, about the changed timeline, about everything. 

It had been only a short time but it had changed a lot. Especially for Ava. Having met Laurel, having started to see her as a friend, as a sister, the thought of saving her life, of breaking all the rules just as she had done when she had told her the truth in the first place, festered in her brain and she couldn't get rid of it no matter what she did. 

So she let it in, played scenarios out, tried to tell herself that if she did this, she would fast get to the conclusion that there was truly nothing she or anyone else could do and would stop thinking about it all the time. 

Except it didn't work out that way. After days of mulling over different ways of saving Laurel, she actually, truly arrived at one that could work. She talked to Gideon about it, a part of her wanting to be contradicted, wanting to hear that this could not work, that there was no way such a plan could ever be possibly carried out. 

But Gideon didn't contradict her. She actually agreed with her. Having been with the legends long enough to not even question attempting something this bold and against all rules, she ran scenarios and seemed quite sure that they had a good chance to make this work. That they had just found a way to save Sara's sister. Not a loophole, not a way of changing the timeline, but a way to remove her from the timeline completely. At least from their timeline.

It would be very dangerous and complicated, and they would need the help not only of all the other legends but also Sara's friends from another Earth. But after days of thinking and planning, Ava and Gideon both came to the conclusion that it would be possible. 

There was a way to save Laurel. 

Not really sure how to approach this with Sara, knowing that saving Laurel was something she didn't ever want to think about, especially not now, after having seen her again, after having lost her again, Ava waited two more days for a perfect moment, but then realized that it would not come and that she needed to get this off her chest. 

So she waited until they were lying in Sara's bed together in the evening, cuddling. Trying to steel herself, she took a deep breath. 

"I need to tell you something." 

Sara smiled at her and raised an eyebrow. 

"About your secret project with Gideon? I noticed you spent a lot of time alone in the medbay since we came back from Starling City." 

Feeling a little guilty for what she was about to put Sara through, but knowing that if she was right, the outcome would be worth it, Ava took a deep breath and decided to just come out with it, lay her cards on the table.

"Yes. I, we, Gideon and me I mean, we found a way to save Laurel." 

As she had expected, Sara's face fell immediately, the smile turning into a deep frown. She violently jerked away, jumping up from the bed, looking at Ava in a way that made her feel like a monster. 

"What? How can you even say that? You know that's not possible." 

Ava also got up. 

"It is possible. There is a way." 

"I saw your dead body. You were dead. You tried to save her and you died. Do you think I want to even think about this? What the hell?" 

Ava closed her eyes for a moment. She had known it would be a hard subject to talk about but she hadn't expected this. Of course, Sara had told her about the timeline she and Laurel had created, but she hadn't dwelled on it, not wanting to think about her own death. 

Sara seemed ready to run out of the room and Ava couldn't stand the pain and despair in her eyes. She stepped a little closer, putting her arms up, knowing better than to touch Sara in this state but trying to convey that she understood her distress, that she was sorry to have caused it.

"It's different. We're not trying to prevent her death, that is impossible." 

The frown was still there but now it was coupled with confusion.

"What does that mean? How can you save her without preventing her death?" 

Ava took another deep breath and tried to sort her thoughts, to have them in order so that Sara would understand. 

"Laurel died in the hospital. Gideon accessed the records and is confident that if we can get her out of there right after she died, she will be able to revive her and heal her wounds." 

Seemingly trying to process that, Sara didn't move or say anything for a long moment. When she spoke again, it was quiet, barely audible. 

"Gideon?" 

"Yes, Captain. Agent Sharpe is right. I analyzed Miss Lance's wounds and if she is brought on board under about four minutes after her death, I will most likely be able to revive her and reverse any brain damage that already occurred." 

Still clearly skeptical, Sara looked questioningly at Ava. 

"Okay, but wouldn't that change the timeline too, put others in danger because we take her body? That's not what happened, and what if Darhk retaliates or something?" 

Ava nodded, impressed with her catching on so quickly. Then again, Sara had always been smart and fast-thinking. 

"That is why we need to not just take her body but also replace her. Gideon has a genetic sample and can create a clone that should be convincing enough for whoever performs the autopsy." 

Raising her eyebrows, Sara looked surprised at those news. 

"Really? I didn't know you could make clones, Gideon." 

"I cannot make living clones. Creating a functioning brain is far beyond my capabilities. But creating a non-functioning brain and body is possible as long as I have sufficient genetic material, which Agent Sharpe provided." 

When Sara looked at her questioningly, Ava shrugged. 

"I found one of Laurel's hairs on my jacket. I thought I might as well put it to use." 

Now Sara laughed a little, apparently starting to warm up to their plan but then zoning in on the one point that they had not discussed yet. 

"Okay, so, let's say we replace her and actually succeed in reviving Laurel, where would she go? I assume she can't particularly stay on the Waverider." 

"No. Doing this, we are creating a paradox, a completely unpredictable one at that, which means that any length of time that Laurel stays alive anywhere in the timeline or possibly even in the temporal zone – there is some grey area here I'm not sure about – could have disastrous consequences." 

"So, what then? What does that mean?" 

"I was hoping for the help of your friends from the alternate Earth." 

Hesitating a moment, Sara then looked at Ava with a frown.

"Leo? He's a good guy, but I doubt Laurel would like to live on an Earth that is ruled by Nazis." 

"I wouldn't assume, so, no, I was thinking of Kara and Alex. You told me that they are from an alternate Earth and came here for Barry and Iris' wedding."

"Kara and Alex?" Sara tried to put all the pieces together. "You mean, we send Laurel to live on their Earth?" 

Shrugging, Ava nodded. 

"It's what I could come up with. I have no idea what that would do to their timeline, honestly, there aren't even any rules here that we would break because nobody ever thought about putting rules in place for something that unimaginable, but technically it should work. 

"Laurel would be removed from our timeline and that should prevent any consequences to anyone on this Earth and since she is completely new to the other timeline on the other Earth her presence should be insignificant enough to not have any lasting effects either."

She knew there were a lot of shoulds in that explanation and that quite honestly nobody could ever say what exactly the consequences of this would be, but the image of Laurel and Sara hugging each other for the last time and Laurel hopelessly accepting her fate when Ava erased her memories were haunting her, making it impossible not to at least try.

"What about the people here? If we remove Laurel from the timeline, that means our parents, Oliver, Felicity, Thea, everyone would still think she is dead, wouldn't they?" 

This was the hard part and Ava had known that.

"Yes. They would have to still believe that for the timeline to stay intact. Nobody other than the people we absolutely need to do this, your team, Kara and Alex, can know. It is already a huge risk to tell anyone at all. It would have to be a completely new start for her." 

"But she would be alive."

"Yes. She would be alive." 

"And we could still visit her, right? On Kara and Alex's Earth? I mean, that is possible?" 

Ava's heart jumped a little at Sara's casual inclusion of her. She knew about Sara's hook up with Alex at Barry and Iris' wedding and had always been curious about her and of course about Supergirl, but so far, the opportunity to visit them together had never presented itself. 

"Of course. You told me you wanted to introduce me to Kara and Alex anyways, so we would always have a valid explanation to go there and visit Laurel." 

Sara sat down on the bed again, for a long time not saying anything. Ava sat down beside her, not wanting to disturb her thinking, and not really knowing what else to say anyways. After a while, Sara took her hand and smiled, albeit still hesitantly.

"Okay. If you think it is possible to do this, let's do it." 

Smiling back, Ava pressed Sara's hand. 

"Okay." 

In the end, everything went much smoother than Ava had expected. The legends as well as Kara and Alex were pretty much immediately on board with helping Sara and while it did take them weeks to plan out everything meticulously, everything pretty much went off without a hitch.

They even had done trial runs, which Mick had commented on as unnecessary, since, in his words, the entire thing consisted of "get the real dead chick out of bed, put the fake dead chick into bed and get out of there", which earned him an eye roll from Sara, but funny enough, in the end he was not wrong, all the obstacles Ava had been afraid of turned out to be manageable with the legends' help. 

Zari was the only one who was working alone, shutting off the cameras in the whole hospital, but nobody was worried that she would be able to do that and get out undetected, seeing how she was used to evading ARGUS, which was much tougher than just the lax security in the hospital. 

The main problem was that they had such a small window to work with, from right after Laurel died and Oliver and his friends left the room until Sara and Laurel's father entered the room just fifteen seconds later. 

But once Amaya had managed to lure the two nurses and the doctor into another room next to the one Laurel was in and miniaturized Ray had closed and shut the door to the corridor, everyone else entered the room via a time portal and Ava, with a voice modulator sounding like the doctor, told Sara's father to wait a minute, which he thankfully accepted as just a normal delay in being able to see his daughter's body. 

That gave Sara, Mick and Nate the time to replace Laurel in the bed while Amaya erased the memories of the nurses and the doctor and together with Ray, they all disappeared through a portal right onto the Waverider medbay, leaving the doctor to lead Laurel's father to her supposed body. 

In the medbay, Gideon was able to revive Laurel and treat her wound, although it took longer than Ava would have liked. Every minute they stayed on this Earth, in this timeline, was a huge risk. But she also didn't want to rush anything, knowing that Gideon needed to do this right, so that there was no danger that Laurel would still die after all. 

The entire time Sara was sitting by Laurel's side, holding her hand. Ava was the one thanking the other legends for their help and they all nodded at her and went to do their own things, knowing to give their Captain the space she needed, while Ava herself stayed at Sara's side, nervous but also immensely relieved and thankful that so far, their plan had worked perfectly. 

When Laurel finally woke up, Sara smiled under tears, holding her hand even tighter than before. 

"Hey." 

Laurel seemed to be very confused but when she saw Sara she also smiled.

"Hey. Where am I? What happened?" 

Clearly not able to answer, Sara just hugged her tightly and after a second, Laurel hugged her back, even though the confusion was still plain on her face. 

Ava really wanted to give them the time they needed, but she knew it was necessary to move Laurel as soon as possible. Anything else could wait until they were safe on the other Earth. So she gently touched Sara's shoulder. 

"We need to go. Now."

She said it very quietly, but Sara nodded and sat up again, still holding Laurel's hand. Laurel frowned at Ava. 

"Do I know you?" 

Ava shook her head, but the emotions she suddenly felt when that question conjured up pictures from their night together made it hard to say anything. Apparently noticing this, Sara looked in Ava's direction and smiled, still with tears in her eyes but seemingly recovered enough to speak. 

"This is Ava. She's a friend. This was her idea." 

Laurel still frowned but now smiled a little bit too.

"Okay. Hi. I still don't know what is going on." 

Even though it broke her heart a little, Ava knew they didn't have the time to do this right now, so she needed to pull herself together and do the necessary thing. 

"Explanations can wait. We need to go, now. Sara, you can help Laurel get dressed and I will wait in the corridor." 

This was what they had planned and Sara nodded and took the clothes Gideon had fabricated for Laurel, smiling at her sister, who still clearly didn't understand anything.

"Ava's right. I promise, I will explain everything later."

With a small nod towards Sara and Laurel, Ava left the medbay. In the corridor, she had to lean against the wall for a moment, because she felt like her legs were giving out on her. She had known that seeing Laurel again, talking to her, would bring up a lot of emotions but it was still overwhelming. 

Taking a few deep breaths she tried to calm herself down. She needed to focus on the task at hand. They were not done yet. The emotional side of things could wait until Laurel was safe on the other Earth.

Thankfully, Sara clearly understood the necessity of doing this as fast as possible, as she and Laurel came out into the corridor only a few minutes later. 

Laurel still seemed to be very confused but she was holding Sara's hand, who was now smiling brightly, albeit still with traces of tears on her face. 

Nodding at each other, Ava took the interdimensional transporter Gideon had made for them at the beginning of this endeavor and opened a portal, both her and Sara smiling a little at Laurel's reaction. 

"Whoa! What is that thing?" 

"It's a portal. We'll go through it to another Earth." 

"Another Earth? What?" 

"We'll explain everything, but we need to go now." 

"Through that?" 

"Yes. It's fine, I promise." 

Laurel seemed pretty skeptical, but still holding Sara's hand she followed Ava and Sara through the portal into Kara's apartment, where Alex and Kara were already waiting for them, greeting them cheerfully. 

"What the hell is going on here? Who are you?" 

Apparently, Laurel had enough. Sara and Ava exchanged looks with Alex and Kara and the latter two retreated into the kitchen part of the apartment, giving their guests some space. They had prepared them before that they wouldn't have the time to explain things to Laurel on their Earth, so Laurel's outburst had been expected. 

Sara smiled at her sister. 

"Let's sit down, okay?" 

All three of them sat down on the sofa, Laurel and Sara next to each other and Ava next to Sara. It was weird but also fitting to Ava that they were mirroring the way they had been sitting during their last conversation that had been already so long ago even when it still felt like yesterday. Back then, it had been an end, now it was a new beginning. 

Sara started to explain, first a little hesitant, not really knowing how to start even when she had had weeks to think about this. Ava understood. It was not an easy thing to explain to your sister that she had just died, but that thanks to time travel, for them she had been dead for over two years and that the only way she could actually be alive was on a parallel Earth, where she would have to stay for the rest of her life, without her parents or friends knowing that she was even still alive. 

In the end, Laurel took all of this better than Ava had expected, even though she was understandably shocked at first. 

"So, mom and dad and Ollie, they don't know I'm still alive?" 

"No. And it has to stay that way. This has to be a completely new beginning for you. A second chance, the ability to start over." 

At that, Laurel smiled a little bit. 

"That is what you said I gave you." 

Sara smiled too.

"Yes. I am returning the favor." 

"Thank you for leaving out the blood lust part." 

They laughed together, a laughter that was lighter than the topic at hand would have called for, but then again, with everything they had been through, laughing about it seemed to be the right thing to do in the end.

"Alex found out that on this Earth, apparently mom and dad never got together, so neither of us exists, but Alex forged you a birth certificate and if there is ever another team up or something like that, if anyone asks you can be the Laurel Lance of this Earth, if you want that." 

"Team up?" 

"Oh, yeah, that's how I met Kara. Fighting aliens." 

"Wait, aliens exist?" 

Sara laughed and waved Kara and Alex over. 

"They do. Kara is one actually." 

Laurel's eyes went wide. Of all the things she learned in the last half an hour, alternate Earths, having been brought back from the dead, the existence of aliens seemed to be the weirdest to her.

"You're an alien?" 

"Yep. I'm from Krypton. My planet was destroyed and I came to Earth as a refugee." 

"And you met each other fighting other aliens?" 

Sara nodded.

"Yes. Well, actually, I only met Kara then, Alex I met a year later at Barry and Iris' wedding." 

"Barry and Iris are married?" 

"Right, you don't know that. Yes, they are." 

"Wow, I missed a lot." 

Sara took Laurel's hands into her own and smiled. 

"It's okay. We'll bring you up to speed and then Kara and Alex can help you get settled here, find an apartment, a job, whatever you need." 

Kara and Alex nodded, smiling. Laurel laughed a little. 

"Well, I guess there are lawyers on every Earth, right?" 

Alex shrugged but laughed.

"I have no idea but there are definitely lawyers here. We actually have a friend who's a lawyer, we can get you in contact with her." 

"Nice." Laurel nodded but then seemed to think about something and frowned. "Wait, does that mean I will have to take the bar exam again? Since I don't have my credentials and all that here?"

Shaking her head, Alex just laughed that off with a little wave of her hand. 

"Oh, no, we can totally fake those too, not a problem." 

Laurel grinned at Alex. 

"I like you." Turning around to Sara after this statement, Laurel's face became a little more serious again. "So, can you stay? A little at least? I still want to know what happened in the last two years. I mean, I already know Barry and Iris are married, but…" 

Smiling, Sara pressed Laurel's hand.

"Yes, we can stay a little. And about the other part, Ollie and Felicity are married too." 

"Really? I guess they worked it out in the end. Good for them. And what about you?" 

Laurel looked pointedly at Ava. Sara also turned around to look at her and then took Ava's hand into her other hand, and turned back to Laurel.

"I don't know about marriage but I'm pretty happy." She looked around at Ava again and smiled. "We are." 

Ava smiled at her too and felt her heart flutter a little.

"That we are." 

Spontaneously, they both leaned in for a quick kiss and when they parted. Sara grinned at Laurel.

"I mean, we mostly make out a lot, so..." 

Alex seemed to choke a little and everyone looked at her. 

"Sorry, I just, I…" 

Kara grinned widely and a few seconds later both Sara and Ava also grinned, realizing what Alex must have thought about. Ava didn't mind at all, she was well aware about the impression Sara's kisses could leave a person with and the mild awkwardness that Alex seemed to still feel dissipated as she also joined in the laughter. 

Only Laurel looked around confused, having no idea what was going on. 

"Did I miss something?" 

For a moment, everybody just looked at each other. Then Alex and Sara shrugged at the same time, which Ava thought was really cute.

"Alex and I hooked up at Barry and Iris' wedding. Guess I left a big impression." 

Sara grinned again, wiggling her eyebrows at Alex, who laughed, this time an open laughter, without any awkwardness. Ava was glad they had gotten to this point and happy that she had met Alex. But for now, the focus was on Laurel, who at the moment stared at Sara open mouthed. 

"Okay. I see I did miss a lot." 

Everyone laughed. Then they talked some more about Sara and Laurel's family and their mutual friends, as well as Alex and Kara's Earth and the differences to the Earth Laurel was used to, the main one being that they had a lot of aliens but very few vigilantes and meta humans. 

At some point, Sara went to the kitchen with Alex and Kara and Ava was left on the sofa with Laurel. They were silent for a moment or two, not an awkward silence but a comfortable one. Ava was thinking about what to say, but Laurel went first, looking at her a little weirdly.

"We don't know each other, do we? I mean, we didn't know each other before today? Somehow I have this feeling that I've met you before." 

Ava's heart seemed to stop for a second. She had no idea what to say, but then she realized that it didn't matter anymore. They were on another Earth, outside of their timeline. There were no consequences anymore. So she nodded.

"We did know each other. Or at least we met. Once. But I had to erase your memories of that. I'm so sorry." 

Laurel looked at her in shock.

"What?" 

Similar to that night back then, Ava decided right on the spot to just come out with everything. Partly because she didn't want to lie to Laurel anymore and partly because she missed what they had had. No matter how short a time it had been, it had been special and she wanted Laurel to know about that. 

"I got stranded in time a while back. In 2009 Starling City, to be exact. I didn't know anyone there, but I knew about you. Sara had told me so much about her sister so I took a chance and I went to you. You… you took me in and you helped me get back to Sara. 

"We talked. A lot. About Sara, about you, about everything. At first I tried not to tell you who I really was, but it didn't work and in the end, I had to erase your memories to preserve the timeline. But now you're here and the timeline doesn't matter anymore, so…" 

She didn't really know how to continue. Laurel's face was unreadable, but there was something there, something small that seemed to grow with every word Ava said. After a long silence, Laurel smiled a little bit. 

"Sara said saving me like this, sending me here was your idea. Is this why? Because you knew me?" 

Ava nodded, tears now in her eyes. 

"Yes. Sara always talked about you and I always felt like I knew you a little, but after that night, I couldn't help but try everything I could to save you."

Now Laurel smiled widely, even though she still seemed to be a little overwhelmed by all of this. 

"After that night? We only knew each other for one night?" 

"Yes." 

Laurel still seemed to process everything, but then she smiled, scooted over to Ava and pulled her into a hug. At first Ava was surprised, but then she hugged her back, putting all the emotions she felt into that hug. After a long moment, Laurel spoke again, still hugging her, her voice quiet and thick with tears.

"Thank you." They pulled apart but stayed quite close to each other. "I wish I could remember that night." 

"Me too." 

They sat in silence again, smiling at each other. Ava thought about how they now had the chance to truly get to know each other, to be a family. How happy she was that she had found a way to bring Laurel back, to have a second chance at happiness. For Laurel, for Sara, for herself. 

It was hard to believe that all of this had happened because of that one night. 

Just one night had changed everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! That's the whole fic. For everyone sticking around this long, thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Full disclosure, I only started writing this fic because I had writer's block for a challenge I entered, in which the goal was to write six stories for character pairing prompts and one especially was proving really difficult, so I grabbed two random prompts to write something small to get back into the flow and this fic was born, which ended up not only being my first chaptered fic but also my longest fic so far by a huge margin. 
> 
> But I did get over the writer's block while writing this and therefore also have all six other fics written and posted now, so, there you go, sometimes things don't work out as planned, but they still work out. :D


End file.
